Forest of Death
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: AU, short story, follows "Falling Down". Naruto heads to Senju City and the next gym. Tsunade gambles. Minato investigates. And mysterious criminals gather in the Forest of Death... Read, review, and enjoy!
1. Part I

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did, I'd have a lot of money…but I don't. So don't bother suing, you won't get anything out of it.

**Notes:** (Crossover, could be a crack!fic if you want) Here there be Naruto characters and Pokémon monsters! This is a _short story_ which follows "Falling Down".

I hope that you enjoy it!

* * *

**Forest of Death**

_Part I_

Naruto paused at the top of the hill, and studied his view of Senju City. While Saru City had been on the small side with few tall buildings, Senju City was huge with towers that seemed to touch the sky. Even though evening was fast approaching, the city was aglow with lights.

He rubbed Bolt's ear as the pikachu danced around on his shoulder, trying to get a better view, before continuing on. The city looked close, but it was so big that it was probably an illusion. If he wanted to get there before it got too late and the pokémon center closed, he had to keep going.

It had been several months since he'd gone to Myouboku Town and had his world turned upside-down and shaken up. When he'd gotten off the painkillers, his mother had had to leave. He took a few weeks to train out in the mountains before challenging Jiraiya for the Toad badge. By that time Sasuke and Sakura were long gone to some other city, he hadn't paid attention to where. Naruto barely got out of the mountains before the start of fall.

And now he was close to Senju City and his sixth badge. Upon hearing that he was going there, Jiraiya had taken him aside to give him some inside information. The physical description of Tsunade Senju made Naruto roll his eyes, but the rest sounded useful.

_"She's drawn some hard cards in life, and has terrible luck. Heck, the gambling world calls her the 'Legendary Sucker'! When you get to Senju City, if she's not in her gym, check the gambling halls and bars and don't leave her alone until she agrees to accept your challenge. I'd suggest you make a bet with her to entice her…but your mother would kill me if she found out, so don't do that."_

His mother… The whole time that she'd been with him in Myouboku Town after his father's identity had been revealed, it'd been like she'd been bracing for some explosion. She'd almost seemed relieved to be leaving when it was time for her to go. But Naruto had never gone off on her; he was more baffled by what she'd done than angry.

Naruto still wasn't sure what to think about his father. It should be this awesome, cool thing. Except…he kind of wished that he'd never found out—that things were the way they were before. He hadn't told Sakura or Sasuke or anyone else anything about it yet.

When Naruto reached the city and found a lighted map sign, he found that Senju City had _three_ different pokémon centers. He'd thought Saru City was big for having _two_, but Senju was clearly much larger. Picking the one that looked like it was closest to the gym, he set off in search of a nice warm bed to sleep in for the night.

On the way, he passed a giant department store dedicated to pokémon. Then there was the massive contest hall, the biggest he'd seen so far. And then he passed several gambling spots with slot machines, pachinko parlors, and roulette wheels.

_"Senju City is many things,"_ Jiraiya had told him before he'd left. _"Those who love pokémon know it as a great place to shop, a place to enter contests, a place to challenge a gym. But to those who love to gamble, Senju City is the next best thing to heaven."_

Naruto sighed. _Man, if I have to find this Tsunade lady in a gambling hall, I'm going to be looking forever! Maybe I should've picked another gym…_

Finally, after what felt like hours of walking, he came to the pokémon center that he'd chosen. It was fairly busy on the ground floor where most business took place. But the top floor, where the bunk beds were, was quiet and surprisingly empty.

He selected a bed, dropped his bag on it—

"Naruto?"

The blonde boy flinched and spun around to find Kiba peering at him from the bed on the other side of the aisle.

"Kiba? You're here too?"

"Yeah," the Inuzuka grunted as his growlithe popped out from under the bed. "Hey guys! Guess who else showed up?"

Naruto turned and looked around, expecting to find Shino and Hinata nearby. He found them, but Sakura and Sasuke were there too. It was almost a class reunion. Only Sai, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino were missing.

"You finally got out of Myouboku Town?" Sasuke snorted, peering around his golbat, which hung from the bottom of the bunk above his bed. "Took you long enough."

"Shut up," Naruto muttered. "Hi Sakura-chan!" he waved. "Hi Shino! Hi Hinata!"

Sakura nodded to him as she read a book with her cherrim in her lap. Shino adjusted his shades (why he wore them inside _at night_ was a total mystery to Naruto) while his ninjask clung to his shoulder. Hinata peered over the edge of her upper bunk along with an adorable pink clefairy and timidly waved back to him.

"What, did you have trouble in Myouboku Town?" Kiba asked with a frown.

"No," Naruto answered. "I just wasn't in any hurry."

"Did you lose the first time?" Kiba smirked.

"No," Naruto growled and flopped down onto the bed that he'd claimed. "Like I said, I wasn't in any hurry. I already got my license confirmed, so it's not like I was under a time limit anymore."

Bolt hopped down from his shoulder and made himself comfortable on the pillow.

"Congratulations on your license," Shino remarked stoically.

"Thanks," Naruto sighed as he yanked his shoes off and made himself comfortable. "So, have any of you guys met the gym leader here yet?"

"No," Kiba grimaced. "Every time we go to the gym, she's not in. Shino and Hinata and I were thinking of going someplace else. We've been trying to make our challenges for almost a month now!"

"We might as well leave too," Sasuke muttered.

"But we've only been here a week and a half," Sakura protested.

"No sense in wasting time here if the gym leader's never around," the Uchiha replied with a careless shrug.

"Well I won't give up," Naruto declared. "I'll find the gym leader and make her take my challenge no matter how long it takes!"

"Whatever," Kiba muttered. "Tell me, is that freaky vulpix of yours any closer to being tame?"

"Yeah, Demon's much better now." Naruto answered. "And don't call him freaky!"

Kiba relaxed back onto his own bed. "Compare him to any other vulpix and he's freaky."

"Well…your face is freaky!" Naruto shot back. "What's with your family and tattoos?"

"It's a sign of family pride," Kiba barked back. "It shows that we are Inuzuka! And we aren't afraid of anything! You're just jealous because you have those lame kitty-whisker scars and not cool tattoos."

Naruto growled. "Kiba—"

"If you two get us kicked out with your fighting, I'll have Pinky _double-slap_ the both of you!" Sakura threatened.

Both boys cringed and turned away from one another.

"Whatever," Naruto muttered and went about getting ready for bed. _I'll be the first one to find Tsunade and get her to fight me and I'll be the first one to walk off with the Leaf badge! So there!_

* * *

Tsunade kept her full focus on the spinning wheels of her slot machine.

_Clefairy… Clefairy… …Gengar._

The busy blonde woman cursed and dug around in her pocket for another gambling token. But all she came up with was some pocket lint. Snarling, she turned to the dark-haired young woman with the spoink in her arms.

"Shizune, lend me some money, will you?"

"No," Shizune answered with a frown. "I know I'll never get my money back, Tsunade-sama." Then she whispered: "If only the money-lenders could figure that out…"

"What was that?" Tsunade snarled at her subordinate trainer.

"Nothing, Tsunade-sama," Shizune sighed.

Tsunade stared at the younger woman, then glared at the offending slot machine before getting up and storming off.

"Where are we going now, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune asked politely as she followed.

"To a bar," Tsunade replied. "Tonight seems like a good night to get drunk, don't you think?"

"No, I don't. Tsunade-sama, what if some trainers come to challenge you and you're hung-over?"

"Too bad for them, then," Tsunade snorted. "Let's go!"

She was done with dealing with the endless stream of dumb punks that were after her gym's badge. She wasn't about to quit, though; that would cut off the salary she drew as a gym leader, and that money was the only thing keeping her afloat. As long as Pokémon League officials didn't find out what she was doing, everything would be fine. And she knew she wasn't likely to be investigated—the Senju name was her greatest shield.

_I need to get wasted,_ Tsunade thought grimly as she marched towards her favorite bar with a very reluctant Shizune in tow. _I need to, otherwise the nightmares will get me…_

* * *

Minato muffled a yawn as he picked his way through the Forest of Death outside of Senju City along with a squad of police officers. When he'd been called away from Myouboku, they'd done this same search and come up with nothing. Then he'd had to do some interviews and official appearances. And now there was a new lead, a specific location within the forest, and so he was back with Kyuubi pacing alongside him and Kiroi on his shoulder, ready to light the way with _flash_ if necessary.

_I need a vacation,_ he grumbled to himself. _One long, uninterrupted vacation…with Kushina…and Naruto, if he'll have me. A nice, private place with a beach, maybe…_

The lead officer held up his hand and they all came to a stop. In the very dark, almost silent forest, they could hear voices somewhere up ahead. They spread out and closed in on the voices as stealthily as possible.

In a moonlit clearing, they found a group of shady characters clustered around a few campfires in front of a scattering of large tents. They wore uniforms—gray trench coats over purple-hued camouflage pants with armbands that had bore the musical symbol of the eighth note. Minato recognized the signature look.

_Fantastic… Henchmen of Team Sound… Just what I wanted to deal with…_

Team Sound was a pack of thugs. They committed crimes with pokémon—they raided warehouses where pokémon merchandise was stored, they used illegal methods to capture wild pokémon, and there were reports of them stealing the pokémon of innocent trainers. If they had any goals beyond mid-level mischief and crime, law enforcement hadn't heard about it. No Team Sound grunt that was caught ever gave up any real information and usually managed to get out of jail quickly, either due to escape or some legal maneuver.

Minato hung back, leaving most of the work to the police. Most Sound grunts weren't much of a challenge, and the numbers were about even so his assistance probably wouldn't be needed. He wouldn't step in unless one of the grunts proved to have a monster or two strong enough to be a serious threat.

At first, everything went fairly smoothly. The police officers burst from the trees, ordering the grunts to surrender. The thugs were obviously startled and it didn't look like they were going to put up a fight…

…But then some people came out of the tents.

Some of them were clearly Team Sound commanders; criminal trainers who were much more dangerous than the average grunt. Others weren't members of Team Sound at all. They wore black trench coats over black pants and armbands with red clouds on them. And whoever they were, Minato could tell that they were bad news.

He, Kyuubi, and Kiroi moved in to back up the police—

Without a word or warning, the strangers with the red clouds sent out a flurry of powerful pokémon—Minato noticed a nidoking, a rhydon, a crobat, at least two gyarados, a gengar, and a dusknoir—and attacked the police officers.

Not the police officers' growlithe and houndour.

The _police officers_.

And then the dark night dissolved into fire and explosions.


	2. Part II

**Forest of Death**

_Part II_

Naruto couldn't help but scowl as he was chased out of what felt like the hundredth gambling hall. He'd started his search for Tsunade right after breakfast, and now it was well after lunch and still no luck. It didn't help any that everyone decided to follow him to see if he could back up his declaration to get the gym leader to accept his challenge.

"What makes you so sure that she'll be in a casino?" Sakura asked as he dusted himself off and scanned the streets for another.

"I got an inside tip," Naruto replied. "She wasn't at her gym, so she has to be somewhere else in the city…"

"I still can't believe you didn't ask Minato Namikaze for an autograph," Kiba muttered. "You always babble on and on about how awesome he is. Shouldn't that be the first thing you go for?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. The Inuzuka boy had been going on about that all morning—at first not believing Naruto's claim that he'd met the League Champion in person, and then after Sakura and Sasuke had confirmed that it was true, he'd complained about Naruto's failure to ask for an autograph. Perhaps, if things were different, Naruto would be kicking himself for not asking the great trainer for his signature, but now it didn't seem that important.

"Well, he _is_ awesome," Naruto asserted. "I think I was still kind of out of it from my concussion. I can get an autograph from him some other time."

"Some other time?" Kiba snorted. "When else are you ever going to see him? He's the champion trainer of the whole country!"

"I'll see him again," Naruto insisted. _He said that I'd see him again…_

"You still think you're going to be the next League Champion?" Sasuke muttered. "You do know that getting eight gym badges is only part of what you have to do, right? There's still a bunch of tournaments you have to do well in, and then the Elite Masters Tournament, just to challenge the Champion."

Naruto blinked. "Sure, I will someday… Geeze, Sasuke, I think that's the most I've heard you say at one time in forever!"

"Hn," the Uchiha grunted.

The Uzumaki boy sighed. "And it's right back to the two-grunt Sasuke-language…"

They rounded the corner then, and stumbled upon an interesting scene going on in front of a small restaurant.

"I warned you that drinking wasn't a good idea," a dark-haired woman with a spoink in her arms sighed.

"Don't talk so loud!" a blonde woman with pigtails and a very impressive bust moaned as she rubbed at her temples. "Now are we going to get some breakfast, or not?"

"But…it's closer to lunch, Tsunade-sama," the younger woman protested. "Or dinner."

_Tsunade?_ Naruto squinted at the blonde woman. _Huh…she's just like Jiraiya the Super Pervert described. …I thought he was exaggerating the size of her boobs. Oh well, here's my chance!_

Naruto sucked in a deep breath and marched right up to the two women. From a distance it was hard to believe that the blonde woman was the same age as Jiraiya. But when he got closer, he noticed faint lines at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth that she'd tried to hide with make-up. He bet that she dyed her hair to hide the gray and had some plastic surgery, too.

"You're the gym leader here?" Naruto asked the busty woman, just to be sure.

"Yeah," Tsunade grunted and squinted down at him. "I'm Tsunade Senju. Who're you?"

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki," he answered, "and I want to challenge for the Leaf badge."

"Uzumaki?"

The woman frowned at him and scrutinized his face carefully. Then her eyes went wide in shock. And then…she burst out laughing.

Naruto rubbed at the back of his head. "Er…so…will you take my challenge, or not?"

Tsunade's laughter died down and her sour expression returned. "You want a badge, huh? Shizune—"

"No," the woman with the spoink said. "I'm not subbing for you anymore. Tsunade-sama, you haven't taken a challenge yourself in months! Unless you decide to retire and leave the gym to me, I can't in good conscience continue to cover for you as much as I have been."

Now Tsunade looked really irritated. "…I don't suppose I could talk you into coming back tomorrow?" she asked him.

"No," Naruto answered stubbornly. "You've already made my friends wait for weeks," he said, pointing to his former classmates, standing a few feet away. "I don't want to hang forever until you finally decide to give me my fight."

Tsunade grimaced as she took in the clump of young trainers that watched her. "Where'd you all come from?"

"Konoha Town," Kiba answered.

"Great," she muttered and turned her brown eyes back to Naruto. "Hm… How about this: We have a quick one-on-one right here, right now. If I win, you buy my breakfast and go away. If you win…I'll take your challenge tomorrow afternoon."

Naruto thought over the offer for a moment before making up his mind. "We can have a battle on the street?"

"There's an alley on the other side of the café," Tsunade told him. "So are you taking my stakes?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded.

A one-on-one battle meant that he'd only get one chance, but she'd be just as limited. He figured that he had a fifty-fifty chance to win. And if he didn't, he'd get a look at one of her pokémon and he'd just bother her later (she'd said _go away_ not _go away and stay away_).

"Excellent," the woman smirked and led him to the alleyway between the restaurant and a candy shop. "Now let's get this over with," she grumbled and immediately set loose a burly nidoqueen.

Naruto gulped as he eyed the imposing blue pokémon and ran through his roster of monsters to find the best one to use. Nidoqueen was a poison type, which made her weak against ground and psychic types. Sandy was a ground type, but the nidoqueen's secondary type was also ground, making Sandy less effective even though she'd evolved into a vibrava which also made her a dragon type. Nidoqueen's secondary type, ground, was weak against grass, water, and ice, and while Naruto didn't have any grass or ice types, he did have…

"Okay then," Naruto grinned and set loose Typhoon. "Let's get started!"

While the nidoqueen had to take a step back from the force of Typhoon's _intimidate_, Tsunade looked furious at the sight of his gyarados. It was as if his gyarados somehow was a personal insult or something. She turned to Shizune, her subordinate trainer, with a grim expression.

"Start us off, Shizune," she said icily.

Shizune sighed, set her spoink down on its spring-like tail, and started them off as Naruto's former classmates watched in silent anticipation.

"Begin!"

"Typhoon, _ice fang_!" Naruto instructed.

"Hime," Tsunade growled, "_thunderbolt_."

Naruto sucked in a sharp breath as—just when Typhoon was closing in with glowing fangs and foggy breath—the nidoqueen launched an electrical assault from her stubby head-horn. Being both a water- and flying-type, his gyarados was doubly weak against electric attacks, which made the _thunderbolt_ devastating. When the blinding flash of the lightning had faded, Typhoon looked rather fried as he struggled to keep from collapsing flat onto the asphalt as the nidoqueen watched, unscathed.

"_Poison fang_," Tsunade ordered coldly, and her nidoqueen stormed forward with purple fluid dripping from her fangs.

"Try _ice fang_ again!" Naruto called out.

Typhoon tried to twist away from the charging nidoqueen and still latch on to her with his ice-cold fangs, but the blue monster caught his serpentine body with her venomous bite. While gyarados had thick scales, the nidoqueen's powerful jaws easily crunched through and pumped poison into his body. But as Hime chewed on him, Typhoon managed to bite her in the back.

"_Thunderbolt _again," Tsunade commanded.

From such close range the attack was even more devastating. Combined with Typhoon's poisoning, the gyarados simply couldn't withstand it. The sea serpent collapsed into unconsciousness while the nidoqueen pawed sorely at the cold spot left on her spiky back.

Tsunade retracted her nidoqueen to its sphere and marched right up to Naruto and held her hand out. "Wallet."

Naruto fumbled around in his pocket and reluctantly gave her his politoed coin purse. The woman rifled through the money inside, took a good chunk of it, and then shoved the wallet back into Naruto's hand. The boy cringed at the loss of his hard-earned money, and how much thinner his precious "Gama-chan" felt.

"Now scram," Tsunade growled and stalked back to the café to get her breakfast…or lunch.

Sighing, Naruto put Typhoon away and shoved his wallet back into his pocket. "Man, is she always so bitchy?"

"Lately, yes," Shizune sighed as she walked up to him. "I can show you were the nearest pokémon center is if you like."

"Thanks," Naruto muttered and glanced towards his friends. "Do you guys want to come?"

"Nah," Kiba answered. "Lunch sounds better. Right Akamaru?"

His growlithe barked an agreement.

"I could go for lunch," Sakura agreed. "Who else?"

"Lunch," Sasuke muttered with a nod.

"Regular meals are required for proper health," Shino said, apparently his version of agreement with the idea.

"I…I'm n-not that h-hungry," Hinata timidly squeaked.

"Alright then, see ya later Hinata!" Kiba waved and jogged away from the alley with Akamaru at his heels. "I say we get barbeque!"

"Hey, wait up!" Sakura shouted after him.

The two other boys followed without a word, leaving Naruto and Hinata alone in the alley with Shizune and her spoink.

"Come along then," Shizune sighed. "Come on, Ton-ton."

* * *

Minato panted as he braced himself against a tree while Kyuubi and Kiroi crouched by his feet and tried to think of what to do next. He'd been on the run all night and long been separated from any of the remaining police officers. A few times he'd tried to ride Ryuu out of the forest, but each time they'd caught up with him and attacked them while he would try to rig up the dragon in the riding harness. He'd also tried to send Kage to fetch help, but the honchkrow had been attacked on the way and barely found him before the luxio and luxray hunting the black bird could completely electrocute him.

It seemed like there was no way out of the Forest of Death.

_The Forest of Death…_ he thought. _The name seems so appropriate now. Those police officers…_

Several of the police officers had to be dead. Many of them were hurt from the pokémon assault. Minato certainly hadn't gotten away from the melee unscathed.

His forearm and cheek were burned and they still stung like heck. He was bruised and battered and his clothes were torn from the attack and from the running blindingly through the trees. It was a miracle that he hadn't lost Kyuubi and Kiroi in the madness and the hours and hours of being hunted that had followed.

_Team Sound is bad news, but they would never go so far as to lash out at the police like that. It was because of those others… Who were they?_

His fatigue-fuzzed mind kept drifting back to a rumor that had come to his attention the year before. Actually, it was barely even a rumor, more like a whisper about some kind of new mysterious bogeymen. A few low-level crooks with some deeper connections had mumbled something about a group called "the Akatsuki Syndicate" or "the Movement of the Red Dawn" to the police when they'd been caught, but further investigation hadn't uncovered anything about those names.

_Red clouds… Maybe it could be them. This "Movement of the Red Dawn" or "the Akatsuki Syndicate"…or whatever they call themselves. But…what are they after? And what makes them so bold? So aggressive? So…_

Wild pokémon attacked people all the time, usually because the humans in question would unwittingly stumble over the pokémon's nest or something else that the pokémon was extremely protective of. But for tamed and trained pokémon to deliberately and directly attack humans…it was one of the biggest taboos that Minato knew of. Even police pokémon, which could be used to subdue criminals and underwent special training to be able to do so, would never attack a human the way that those pokémon had.

Minato scrubbed at his eyes and looked around at the gloomy forest. It was so dense where he was, it was impossible to accurately judge the time of day; it could be the morning or the evening as far as he knew. But he had to get out, get back to Senju City and gather back-up, get help for whatever police officers were still alive and lost.

_If only I knew where I was, or which trail to take…_ His shoulders slumped and his eyes closed, just for a moment, as he leaned against the tree. _If only they weren't hunting me down like an animal and sending their monsters straight after me instead of battling with me properly…_

A tug on his pant leg brought his eyes down to Kiroi. The raichu looked frightened, and his ninetails was on edge, listening for any sound that might mean that something was approaching. Kyuubi was something of a recent addition to his team, but the rest had been with him for years and years, and yet none of them had ever been put in a situation like this one before.

His pokémon were used to battling the right way. They fought against enemy pokémon and the humans supervised. Enemy pokémon _never_ attacked their trainer. It just wasn't done. It wasn't right.

_This is just insane._ Minato groaned and pushed off the tree to keep walking, searching for some landmark in the forest while trying to avoid enemies—Team Sound, the red cloud people, or even some random wild pokémon that decided to attack—in the process. Kiroi and Kyuubi followed, keeping their senses alert to try and protect him better than they had previously. _This is all insane…_

* * *

Naruto fiddled with a bare dango skewer while Demon lay near his feet and gnawed on a chewy pokémon treat. Hinata was still nibbling at her food with her little piplup in her lap. And Shizune had finished her lunch but seemed lost in her thoughts as her spoink peeked up at her intently (being a psychic-type, maybe it was reading her mind).

After showing them the nearest pokémon center, Shizune had taken them to a small, pokémon-friendly café. Tsunade's subordinate had made a little small talk during the meal, but hadn't revealed anything terribly interesting about the gym leader. Hinata had barely said a word, managing only to ask Naruto if the soothe bell she'd given him had helped any with taming Demon.

That had been a tricky question to answer. Demon was much more tolerable than he had been, but it had taken so long to get to that point that it was hard to tell if the bell had made any real impact. At least the sound of the bell had been useful, especially when Demon was still in his I-don't-like-you-so-I'm-going-to-run-away-every-chance-I-get phase. So he'd just settled on "yes".

"Shizune," Naruto said, tapping the wooden skewer against his plate. "Why's Tsunade so nasty?"

The dark-haired woman blinked and then focused on his question. "A lot of reasons," she sighed. "Your choice of pokémon didn't help her mood any."

"She has something against gyarados?" Naruto frowned.

"Yes." Shizune's look was grim. "Tsunade-sama once had a younger brother named Nawaki. The very day after he became a pokémon trainer and received his first pokémon…he was killed in a horrible accident. Another trainer, who had been trying to raise a magikarp into a gyarados, had grown impatient with his fish and began to mistreat it. The night that Nawaki died, that abused magikarp finally evolved and with its new-found power went on a revenge-fueled rampage. Nawaki tried to help get some innocent bystanders out of the way and was crushed by the gyarados's _thrash_ attacks."

"That's so horrible!" Hinata gasped (and had Naruto not been just as shocked, he would've been surprised that the Hyuuga girl hadn't stuttered).

"I hate people like that!" Naruto growled. "If you can't be patient enough to raise a magikarp you don't deserve a gyarados!"

"I know," Shizune nodded in agreement. "But ever since then, Tsunade-sama's had trouble trusting any gyarados, even the calmest, most well-trained ones. When a trainer uses one against her, she goes all out against it. She taught Hime _thunderbolt_ just to electrocute gyarados."

"Man," Naruto muttered. "Talk about holding a grudge…"

"It's more than that," the woman continued. "Tsunade-sama only truly became bitter after the loss of her fiancé, Dan. He was my uncle, and a dedicated pokémon ranger. He would patrol the most remote parts of the Forest of Death and drive off poachers and help lost trainers." Her dark eyes grew misty. "He loved his job, but… A few months before they were to be married, my uncle went on a patrol during a terrible storm. Some trainers had gotten stranded by a flooding river and he was trying to help them. Just as he'd brought the last one to safety, a huge tree branch fell and mortally wounded him. He died just when she arrived at his side in the hospital."

"That's so sad," Hinata whimpered, hugging her piplup to her chest.

"Yeah," Naruto swallowed hard. "So…now she's always angry?"

"She's haunted by what happened," Shizune explained. "She's afraid to let anyone else close to her; she's convinced that her own bad luck killed her brother and my uncle. Every year the ghosts and the guilt get worse and Tsunade-sama grows bitterer and more separated from everyone else. It's gotten so bad now… All she wants to do is drink and gamble, and she hasn't been to her private training grounds in the Forest of Death in nearly two years. Tsunade-sama can't stand the forest anymore."

_She's a lot like Mom,_ Naruto thought as he tapped the empty dango skewer on the edge of his plate. _She's running away. I guess…the only difference is that she's running from dead people instead of live ones._

The waitress came by and handed out their bills. Naruto wanted to cry as he dug money out of his half-depleted Gama-chan. Stuff in Senju City was expensive, and if he had to stay as long as some of his friends had to get the Leaf badge, he'd have to take a part-time job somewhere to make some cash or he'd be broke.

"Th-thank you for showing us a-around, Shizune-san," Hinata stammered with a polite bow, which her piplup mirrored, as they got up from the table to leave.

"Yeah, thanks," Naruto nodded, his mind buzzing with new information.

"It's no problem," Shizune smiled, her spoink squealing happily. "Although, Naruto, I have to ask…do you know why Tsunade-sama found your name so funny?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with my parents…"

"Your parents?" Shizune cocked her head curiously. "Who are your parents?"

Naruto nervously rubbed at the back of his head. "Um…"

"Naruto! Hinata!" Kiba cried as he and Akamaru rushed up to them. "There you are! We ran into these police officers who're looking for volunteers—any trainers with four badges or more."

"Police officers?" Shizune muttered with a frown.

"Volunteers?" Naruto asked. "For what?"

"They want to get into the Forest of Death and look around," Kiba answered. "Apparently something's gone down out there. C'mon!"

Intrigued, Naruto jogged after Kiba along with a concerned Hinata and Shizune. He didn't worry about whether or not Demon was following him. The jingling of the vulpix's soothe bell let him know that the fire fox was right behind him.

Kiba brought them to an open plaza that looked like it was near a large police station. Sakura, Sasuke, and Shino were already there, along with several other older trainers and a group of uniformed police officers. And a few of those police officers were trying to talk to an angry-looking Tsunade.

"I said no!" the blonde woman snarled. "You go do what you want, but I'm not going into that forest!"

"But Tsunade-sama…" one of the officers tiredly protested. "As gym leader, one of your responsibilities is to—"

"I don't care!" Tsunade snapped. "And anyway, you're overreacting. Minato's with them so I'm sure that all your colleagues are just fine. They're just delayed in getting touch with you, that's all."

"Perhaps we are overreacting," a more senior police officer shrugged. "However, with the recent events of the past few months—reports of poaching, mysterious attacks on trainers, the disappearance of several rangers, and now this—it seems prudent to make a search. And as we are low on strength it also seems prudent to gather proficient trainers, such as yourself, to assist us."

"Count me out," Tsunade growled. "I have better things to do than wander around in the woods and jump at shadows."

"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune protested, rushing to the older woman's side. "You really shouldn't refuse this time. What if—"

"You go if you want, Shizune," Tsunade huffed. "I'm staying in the city."

Naruto scowled. _This isn't right… She's the gym leader! She can't just hide in the city because the forest has bad memories in it…_ The boy glanced down at his vulpix, and was struck with an idea.

"You're staying in the city?" Naruto said loudly. "What, are you scared of the dark?"

The gym leader glared at him. "What was that?"

"N-Naruto-kun?" Hinata squeaked nervously.

"Or maybe it's the bugs and ghosts," Naruto continued. "Girls are always scared of bugs and ghosts."

"Naruto…" Sakura frowned.

"What would you know, brat?" Tsunade sneered.

"Plenty," Naruto grinned. "You're just a scared old lady."

"_Old lady?!_" the blonde woman roared.

"Naruto!" Shizune gasped.

"Dude, I think you should stop…" Kiba gulped.

"Yeah, you're as old as Jiraiya, and he's old!"

The busty woman looked ready to explode. "Why you little—"

"Hey, Oba-chan, if I bring a nightlight, would you feel brave enough to go into the forest?"

"That's it!" Tsunade stormed right up to him and savagely pinched his ear. "Just for that, you get to explore the forest with me, and when this all turns out to be nothing I'm calling your mother!"

"Go ahead," Naruto shrugged, putting on a confident face. _Mom won't be mad when I explain…I hope._

With a final angry glare, Tsunade stomped off to get ready with the police officers.

Naruto waited until she was thoroughly distracted by her conversation before snickering to himself.

_I am a genius!_


	3. Part III

**Forest of Death**

_Part III_

Naruto tried to look calm as he walked single file with the motley assortment of police officers and pokémon trainers down the narrow trail through the Forest of Death. It was getting late and already it was pitch black in the forest. And that meant that soon the ghost pokémon would start coming out.

_I'm okay,_ he reminded himself. _I've got Shadow with me. A big, bad umbreon keeps the ghosts away…_

And he was with a very large group with a lot of flashlights, so it was unlikely that any ghost would seriously attack them. Beside him, Shadow kept alert to any threats while his yellow markings glowed softly in the darkness. Further up the trail, Naruto could catch glimpses of the flickering tail-flame of Sasuke's charmeleon. And if he turned around, he could see the light coming from the crystal-like orb on the striped tail of Hinata's sheep-like flaafy as the electric pokémon provided light for her section of their expedition.

_Everything's fine… I can handle this… No problem…_

"You scared yet, Brat?"

Naruto managed not to scream at Tsunade's voice suddenly coming at him from behind.

…Barely.

"Nope," he lied, forcing himself to un-tense. "I'm totally fine."

"Really now…" Tsunade strolled casually alongside him with her leafeon. "I know that grass-types aren't generally very threatening, and boys are rarely creeped out by bug-types, but there are plenty of aggressive dark-types and mischievous ghost-types out in the forest, and they really only come out at night…"

"Quit trying to scare me," Naruto grumbled. "It's not going to work."

The blonde woman chuckled. "So why are you gripping your flashlight so tightly?"

"I just don't want to drop it," Naruto shot back.

Tsunade scoffed at him. "C'mon Nawaki, let's get back to the front."

The gym leader picked up the pace and headed for the front of the line with her leafeon bounding after her.

_Nawaki?_ Naruto scratched at the back of his head. _Didn't Shizune say that was her dead brother's name?_

* * *

The camp deep in the heart of the Forest of Death was alive with activity. Underlings scrambled to break tents, box up equipment, and load supplies onto large, strong pokémon in preparation of dispersal. But one tent remained untouched, and inside a cluster of men huddled around a heavily encrypted radio link.

"Are you sure about this, Leader-sama?" one of the men asked cautiously.

_"Yes,"_ was the irritated answer, his sharp tone undiminished by the crackle of the voice-only connection (their mysterious leader never, ever used a video-link, and only his most trusted commanders had ever seen what he really looked like). _"We've made too big of a move. Our presence attracted too much attention and our time in this forest has run out. Finish breaking camp and disperse. Lay low until I send for you again."_

"But we creamed those police!" another of the men protested. "And our scouts report that they've got the _League Champion_ of Fire Country on the run! Think what we could do if we got our hands on his pokémon! Playing with those things would be a real _bang_!"

_"And by taking down Minato Namikaze, we gain notoriety. Notoriety that we do not need. Such a bold move is premature at this time. There is a time when we can take down such famous trainers, but that time is not now. My decision is final, Deidara."_

The man identified as Deidara was officially a gym leader of Earth Country. He was highly eccentric with an odd artistic bend. The blonde-haired man had fashioned a compact digital camera that he always wore over his eye like a high-tech eye patch. He used it to photograph whatever he was looking at, usually pokémon—wild or tame—in action. Then he'd use the photographs to sculpt pokémon out of clay as his hobby. And when his pieces didn't turn out the way that he wanted…he'd blast them with sticks of dynamite.

Deidara growled, but gave in. "Of course, Leader-sama. I understand." He turned to another man skulking near the corner of the tent. "It's too bad that your worthless minions bungled their operations here. We could've kept going, Orochimaru."

The target of Deidara's ire ran a Fire Country gym in Oto City as his day job. He was a rather creepy individual with limp black hair, pale skin, and faint purple eye make-up that gave him a very snake-like look, which was probably what he was going for. It was anyone's guess whether his golden eyes with their slit pupils were special contacts or somehow actually natural. With his reputation as a protégé of the former League Champion of Fire Country (Hiruzen Sarutobi), his…odder…traits were usually overlooked.

"Quit throwing the blame around, Deidara," the first man sighed. "As distasteful as Orochimaru's group is, they have their uses. You know that as well as the rest of us. …You're just disappointed that you haven't had the opportunities to blow things up like you were expecting."

_"Sasori is right,"_ the disembodied voice of their distant leader cut in before Deidara could complain further. _"There is no point in casting blame at this point. I want all signs of our presence in the Forest of Death gone by midnight. We will lay low for however long it takes, and return to complete our search when we can. Now get to work."_

There was a click and the connection was broken.

"Well you heard the man," a velvety, slithery voice purred from the corner. "Let's finish breaking camp."

"Shut up, Orochimaru!" Deidara grumbled. "I wish you wouldn't let such worthless scumbags into your organization."

"Don't let them hear you calling them that," Orochimaru chuckled darkly as he slipped out of the tent. "They just might turn on you."

"Creep," Deidara muttered. "Well, let's get to work, Sasori!" he added much more cheerfully, slapping the other man on the shoulder.

Sasori was of Wind Country, and guardian of the Puppet badge. He was always calm and controlled to the point where his youthful, handsome face looked like it was carved from wood. The red-haired man was an artist like Deidara, but instead of sculpting with clay, he carved intricate marionettes of people and pokémon…and he never blew them up with dynamite. With his more conservative, traditional views on art, he and Deidara clashed often, though the blonde man seemed to take their arguments more like friendly banter than Sasori did.

"Don't touch me," Sasori grumbled as the two of them exited the tent.

The two men who were left in the tent went about breaking down the communication equipment.

"Deidara's such a whiner," one of the leftover men chuckled. "Just because he can't play with bombs or have his beasties use _explosion_ to 'end things with a _bang_!' he gets so upset…"

"We have a lot of work to do, and not much time to accomplish it all in," the other man responded quietly. "Please focus on the task at hand, Kisame."

Kisame was a man from Water Country and a lover of all things shark-like. The foreign gym leader had gone so far as to tattoo black gill-like markings on his cheeks and wear blue make-up to further his fishy look. And he refused to admit whether his pointy teeth were a genetic quirk or purposely funky dental work.

"Fine, fine," Kisame sighed as he unhooked various wires. "Why do you have to be so serious all the time, Itachi?"

"It's an Uchiha thing," was the younger man's vague answer.

"Whatever," Kisame muttered, clicking his unusually pointed teeth together.

Itachi eyed his companion for a moment with sharp red eyes before diligently continuing his disassembly of the equipment. As he had said, there wasn't a lot of time to get all their equipment and supplies out of the forest and erase all traces of their presence. But once things settled down, and he was back at his own gym, he had a thing or two to do.

* * *

Naruto wanted to kick himself. The batteries in his flashlight had given out and no one around had any spares. So now he was a dark spot in the line.

_At least we're almost there…_ Naruto jammed his hands deeper into his pockets as he followed the police officer walking in front of him. …_At least I hope so._

Shadow brushed against his legs as they walked along the narrow trail. The umbreon sensed his unease, and would do its best to protect him. But the feeble glow put off by Shadow's yellow markings wasn't much comfort.

_After I get the Leaf badge I should head home and get Hikari to help Bolt learn how to use __**flash**__…_

The policeman ahead of him stopped suddenly and Naruto almost ran into his back. Peering around him, the single-file line had clumped up into a blob of police officers and trainers. But to the boy's irritation, he was too short to see what was causing the hold up.

_Grr…when am I ever going to get taller?!_

"Hey," he spoke up, "what's going on up there?"

The police ahead of him ignored his question and started murmuring amongst themselves. Before Naruto got annoyed enough to start loudly demanding answers, several trainers filtered back, including Sasuke and Sakura who had been further ahead of him. They both looked pale and freaked out.

"Hey, hey guys!" he whispered loudly and waved them over. "Do you know what's going on?"

Sakura looked sick, or like she wanted to cry. "They're dead…" Her espeon looked droopy and shell-shocked.

Naruto blinked. "Who's dead?"

"Some of the police officers that we were looking for," Sasuke mumbled, his usual aloof cracked and letting his shock seep through. The flickering flame on his charmeleon's tail cast strange shadows around them, giving their little patch of black forest a campfire-y feel. "They're dead—"

"Wait a minute, who's dead?" Kiba interjected as he and his growlithe, Akamaru pushed through some nearby bushes. "What's going on? What's the hold up?"

"Eek!" Hinata squeaked as she tried to follow Kiba, but tripped and sprawled on the dirt.

Shino materialized out of the dark with her flaafy and something brown hovering over his shoulder (Naruto was too focused on Sasuke to really pay attention to it) and helped her stand up.

"The police officers that we came here to find," Sasuke repeated, crossing his arms over his chest as if hugging himself. "They found some of them dead. A growlithe, too."

"What?!" Kiba yelped loudly (causing a nearby policeman to shush him).

"…Did a wild pokémon get them?" Naruto asked hesitantly.

"Police officers only keep a few pokémon, but I'm sure that they are able to sufficiently defend themselves against wild pokémon," Shino said. The shade-wearing boy, who always seemed so detached and analytical, hesitantly voiced a hard-to-swallow theory. "…It was a deliberate attack by trained monsters, wasn't it?"

"Probably," Sasuke swallowed, looking almost gray.

"No way!" Kiba hissed. "That's so against the law! What kind of sicko would do that?!"

"They're dead…" Sakura repeated, trembling with green eyes unfocused and watery. "They…they're all…"

A bouncing orb of light approached them through the dense undergrowth and revealed Shizune and her springy spoink acting as a lantern. The dark-haired woman immediately took Sakura a little way away and started whispering to the pink-haired girl. Naruto dropped his eyes to the dirt under his sneakers and bit his lip.

His mother had always warned him that there were terrible people out there; that if he went out on the road as a pokémon trainer he had to be careful. But this went far beyond anything he'd ever imagined. He'd come to the forest to help out the police like a good citizen, and for the adventure, and to make sure Tsunade didn't chicken out. …It wasn't some great adventure anymore.

_Ah, I totally forgot to call home!_

With his late arrival into the city, and his fixation on finding Tsunade and challenging her as soon as possible, it had completely slipped his mind to call his mother and let her know where he was and how he was doing. For all she knew, he was still dragging his feet on the way to Senju City. She had no idea that he was out in the Forest of Death a few bushes away from some dead bodies.

"This is not what I signed up for," one of the other volunteer trainers muttered from nearby.

"Yeah," the guy's buddy agreed, "I'm so out of here."

"If someone out there's willing to kill _police_, then no one's safe."

"I'm all for going back."

"Are there seriously dead cops up there?!"

"Quiet back there!" one of the policemen barked. "We don't know what kind of situation we're dealing with here so keep any talking to whispers! If you're going to go back to the city, do so quietly!"

This caused a ripple of whispers to spread throughout the trainers present and the line of people bunched up even more. From what Naruto could hear, most seemed ready to leave the company of the police and head back to the safety of the city. But then, from the very back of the line, there was a burst of panicked yells.

And then there was a flash of light and a deafening crash of sound.

Naruto staggered from the blast wave and rubbed at his slightly ringing ears. "What the—"

"Electrodes!" someone yelled in the brief, shocked silence that followed the explosion. "There are electr—"

Another tooth-rattling blast drowned out whatever else was being said.

Full panic exploded along with the next blast. Everyone tried to run away, but mostly they just ran into each other. Naruto tried to keep sight of his friends, but in the chaos he even lost track of Shadow as he tried to escape from the explosions that just kept going off every half-minute or so. In the end, he just put his head down and ran headlong through the bushes to try and get clear of everything.

_This is insane! Crazy! Nuts—ergh!_

A root caught his toe, sending him diving face-first into the dirt.

"…Ow," he wheezed, winded by the impact. Coughing to get his breath back and spitting some dirt from his mouth, he staggered back to his feet and looked around…to find that he was completely alone. "Shadow?" he squeaked.

The umbreon failed to appear, and all he could hear in the pitch blackness was the distant sound of a few more explosions. Naruto started to sweat as his blue eyes frantically darted around in the darkness. He was all alone, with some mysterious attack going on not too far away, his flashlight was dead, and he'd lost his umbreon…so now the ghosts could get him.

Naruto slowly sank back down to the ground. It was so dark he could barely see his hands in front of his face. The dense foliage drank up the sounds, making everything except very close noises muffled. It was like he'd fallen into a dark void all alone…

"H-hello?" the boy whimpered, wanting to be heard yet nervous of attracting the attention of ghosts or the mysterious attackers who had everyone on the run. "Shadow?"

Trembling with nerves, Naruto fumbled with his pokéballs and released his vulpix.

"Demon, can you find Shadow? Or…or anyone?"

The fire fox whined in confusion.

"Great," Naruto gulped, shivering. "I'm lost in the dark in ghost central—what's that?!"

A faint light shone through some bushes to his left. Ghosts sometimes used creepy lights to scare people or lead them astray. The boy cowered from it and the vulpix growled at it.

The leaves rustled, and then a raichu tumbled from the brush. It was in bad shape with several clear scrapes and bleeding cuts and its _flash_ was weak, hinting at how low its energy was. Because of the way raichu evolved, Naruto knew that it was tame, but who did it belong to?

"Hi there," Naruto greeted softly. The raichu started, and made as if to flee. "Hey, wait! I've got something for you." He dug around in his bag for a moment and fished out a couple of oran berries and a sitrus berry and held them out to the brown electric mouse. "Here!"

If he could persuade the raichu to stay with him until its trainer turned up, he would get some protection from the light of its _flash_. The raichu eyed the berries in his hand before snatching them and bolting them down so fast Naruto worried that the pokémon would choke on them. As the healing berries started to take effect, the raichu sized him up, and Demon spoke up to the other monster. Whatever their conversation was about, it really seemed to interest the raichu and—after it sniffed his offered fingers with great intensity—the pokémon actually climbed into his lap to hug him.

"Er, hi." Naruto blinked, patting the raichu on the furry back. "So, you want to stick with me for a while, Raichu?"

The raichu squeaked what sounded like an agreement.

"Thanks," Naruto grinned weakly as the raichu's light started to strengthen. "Let's…get out of here."

He slowly stood up and looked around, but wasn't sure where to go. He couldn't see the trail anymore, and he wasn't sure he wanted to head back there anyway. The bad guys (whoever they were) might be gathered there. But he didn't want to get anymore lost, so that none of his friends or the police could find him.

_Maybe…if I find a good landmark, like a big rock or something…_ Naruto ran his fingers through his spiky hair as he thought. _Yeah, that could work. I'll find a good place and wait—at least until morning._

"Let's go…this way," the boy decided, settling on a direction to head off in.

The raichu led off, lighting the way. Naruto followed close behind, making sure to stay completely within the circle of light. And Demon trotted alongside, his soothe bell tinkling in the eerily still darkness.

_…This is all crazy,_ he thought as he walked. _What the heck is going on in this forest? Dead people, explosions out of nowhere…what next?!_

A sad moan drifted through the dark trees, freezing Naruto in his tracks.

_I wish I hadn't thought that…_

* * *

Sasuke ran, towing Sakura behind him, until he found a particularly thorny bush. He shoved the pink-haired girl under the prickly brush before crawling in after her. The girl's espeon and his charmeleon hurried to follow.

"Dragon," Sasuke hissed as he grabbed Sakura's flashlight and turned it off, "cover your fire."

The charmeleon shifted around so that his flaming tail tip was tucked under the fire-lizard's belly, hiding their source of light.

They lay there, trying to catch their breath as quietly as possible. Where anyone else was or what had happened to them the Uchiha boy had no idea. All he'd thought to do was grab Sakura and run until they found a good place to hide.

Now he was fresh out of ideas.

"Sasuke-kun," the girl whispered. "Are we going to die?"

"No," he growled. "Be quiet."

He tried not to think of the bodies—the corpses that they'd seen before the policemen could stop them and send them back. They'd laid so still and twisted and not breathing. And they weren't just dead, but torn up by claws and burned by flames. Three police officers and one of their growlithe: dead.

Why?

For what?

The foliage rustled, and it sounded like two people, maybe more, walking nearby. Sasuke held his breath and Sakura curled up tightly to his side. Their pokémon tensed, but did nothing, waiting for the signal to attack.

The mystery people walked right up to their hiding spot and stopped.

"Man, this is such a mess," one grumbled. "We were almost out, and then those cops had back-up show up. …The boss isn't going to be happy about this."

"No duh," the other snorted. "It's a good thing that that Akatsuki creep brought all those electrodes with him. All those booms should give us enough cover to get free and clear of this place."

"What are we even doing in this forest again, anyway," the first complained, and lit a cigarette, casting eerie shadows on his scruffy face. "The boss had us sniffing around a few months back, we found nothing, we left when the cops got antsy, and now we're back and in hot water—and what for?"

"Boss wanted to study that Moss Rock…you know, that spot where eevees evolve," the second muttered. "And I heard something about some green fairy the Akatsuki want."

"A green fairy?" The smoker snorted derisively. "What are those Syndicate freaks smoking?"

"Who knows," the other man answered with a shrug. "Let's get this over with—finish our sweep and get the hell out of here. I think we've poached enough and stolen enough to make the boss happy. Who cares what his Akatsuki friends want?"

"Yeah," the smoker sighed. He took a few more puffs on his cigarette and then put it out with a grind of his boot heel. "Let's get going."

The two men moved off and when he was sure they were gone, Sasuke sighed in relief. But what he'd heard troubled him. They poached pokémon? They stole pokémon? There were at least two groups…and one wanted the Moss Stone, and the other wanted some green fairy? Who were these people?!

And where would they be going?

"Sasuke-kun," Sakura whimpered, "let's run."

"No," he whispered back, "we sneak around slowly. We don't want to run into any more of those guys if we can help it."

It seemed like a good plan of action, but he really didn't know. He was completely out of his depth here. Just because he had five gym badges and Sakura had four didn't mean that they were ready to face anything like this. He wanted to blame the cops for recruiting them for this, but they couldn't have known how bad it was going to be, and the two of them had volunteered.

Just as they were crawling out from under the bush, more rustling leaves stopped them. They held their breaths, expecting more faceless bad guys to materialize out of the darkness. But instead, a frantic umbreon bounded into view, sniffing around as it searched for something.

"…Isn't that…Naruto's umbreon?" the pink-haired girl wondered.

"I think so," Sasuke said as he crawled out of the bush with his charmeleon. The sudden appearance of light from Dragon's burning tail startled the black pokémon, but once it recognized Sasuke's face, it went back to searching. "It must be…but what's it doing without Naruto?"

"They must've gotten separated," Sakura theorized as she coaxed her espeon out with her. "That's probably what it's doing—looking for Naruto."

Sasuke frowned thoughtfully at the black-and-yellow evolved eevee.

_Naruto has a ghost phobia. This forest is known for having a wide variety of ghosts in it. Naruto's umbreon protects him against ghosts. So without it…_

"Let's go find Naruto," the Uchiha boy sighed, "before a ghost finds him and he falls apart. And then let's get the heck out of here."


	4. Part IV

**Forest of Death**

_Part IV_

Tsunade grimaced as she tightened the make-shift rope around the Team Sound punks she was tying to a tree. She'd come across them a half an hour after the chaos that had broken up the search party and creamed them with Hime and Konoha. Now it was time to get some answers…

"Alright," she growled, pointing her flashlight directly into the three young men's eyes. "Answer my questions, or I'll turn you into pokémon food! What are you criminals doing in this forest?"

"I don't know!" one yelped. "We just go where we're told to and follow our orders!"

"We just set traps for ghosts!" a second admitted. "That's all we've been doing, honest!"

"Whatever else anybody else has done, we don't know nothing about it!" the third whimpered.

"…You poached ghost pokémon?" Tsunade said with a frown. At their nods, she went about stripping them of anything that they could use to escape. Leaving their knives, pokéballs, and other tools out of their reach, she turned to leave them behind. "Well, why don't you hang out here for a while and see what the ghosts think of that…"

She ignored the henchmen's cries for mercy and left the scene with her leafeon, Nawaki. She had no sympathy at all for them. It was one thing for wild pokémon to attack people, for abused pokémon to lash out at people, for acts of nature to kill people—it was something else entirely for trained pokémon to be directed into attacking and killing people. A few hours of torment from wild ghost pokémon before the police got them or their criminal buddies cut them loose would do them some good.

As she navigated the dense woods, she kept her eyes peeled for anyone on her side. So far she'd come across two groups of police officers, but they were coping well and in large enough groups that she didn't worry much about them. She was more concerned for the volunteer trainers, especially the younger ones.

After several minutes of walking, she spied a flickering orange light ahead and to the left. Intrigued, she shifted course to catch up with it. And when she caught up, she found that the light was coming from the tail of a charmeleon that was being followed by two kids, an espeon, and an umbreon.

"Hello kids," she greeted, making the boy and girl jump.

"T-Tsunade-sama," the pink-haired girl squeaked and bowed.

The dark-haired boy just stared at her.

"Do you need help finding a trail out of here?" Tsunade asked.

"No," the boy said. "We're looking for Naruto."

The blonde woman grimaced slightly at the memory of the brat. These had to be some of his little friends.

"I'm sure he'll be fine. It's better for you to get out of here as soon as you can. This situation is way over your heads."

"But…" the girl gulped. "But he's lost his umbreon…and he's terrified of ghosts."

_He has a ghost phobia?_ Tsunade blinked. _And he came in __**here**__?!_

When they'd been traveling in a large, well-lit group, the ghosts had stayed away. And the chaos of all the fighting and explosions were keeping them away. But if he got far enough away to a quieter place…something _would_ approach him.

"Alright," she sighed. "Let's go find him and then get you out of here."

With the two junior trainers under her wing, they continued on, following the umbreon who was desperately sniffing around for his lost trainer. There was no conversation as they traveled. The kids were scared; she could feel it. Every sound, every unknown glint of light, had them flinching. Tsunade really couldn't blame them.

"So, what are your names?" she asked.

"Sakura Haruno," the girl answered.

"Sasuke Uchiha," the boy replied.

_An Uchiha…of course._

The boy bore a vague resemblance to most of the Uchiha she'd met over the years. They all had the serious, pales faces and dark eyes. And the vast majority of them were arrogant snobs. Only the sprawling Hyuuga family could match the Uchiha's size, influence, wealth, and bad attitude.

"And what are your goals?"

"I just want to help Sasuke-kun," Sakura replied.

Tsunade had to roll her eyes at that.

"I want to earn my family's respect," Sasuke answered. "I want to be good enough to beat my brother in his own gym."

"I see…" Tsunade folded her arms over her ample chest. _So, he's Itachi's little brother…_

Itachi Uchiha was undeniably talented as a pokémon trainer, and was surely the pride of his family. But he was a very hard person to read. Tsunade had only met him once, but his red eyes and unsmiling face left a clear impression of him in her mind.

"Um…Tsunade-sama?" Sakura squeaked out nervously.

"Hm?"

"Did you evolve your eevee into a leafeon because of the special rock that's supposed to be in this forest?" the girl asked.

"Yes," Tsunade nodded, biting her lip. "He would've wanted me to…"

The pink-haired girl tilted her head curiously. "Who?"

"My younger brother, Nawaki," Tsunade explained and patted the leafeon on the head. "This was his first pokémon. When he…died…I took it in as my own."

"Oh…"

That pretty much killed any conversation for a while.

The three of them just followed the umbreon as he followed his nose. The black monster kept sniffing around and sniffing around, sometimes losing the scent for several minutes before finding it again. And the scent trail that it followed just led them deeper and deeper into the pitch black forest.

_Yeesh,_ Tsunade sighed,_ how far did this brat run?_

* * *

Naruto struggled to keep his teeth from chattering as he, Demon, and the raichu crept towards the moaning sounds.

_Maybe it's not a ghost. Maybe it's a hurt person. I have to go see…right?_

But the closer he got, the more it sounded like it was a ghost—or a lot of ghosts—instead of a person. Then Naruto poked his head through a wall of bushes to find a clearing where the light of a nearly full moon illuminated everything. And it was choked with a cloud of ghost pokémon.

There were sheet-like shuppets, skull-faced duskulls, wraith-like misdreavus, and gaseous gastlys. The dark shapes swirled and moaned around a lonely purple shape at the far side of the clearing. Naruto started to shake and slowly edged backwards, hoping to escape notice, but his efforts were in vain. Perhaps it was the light of the raichu's _flash_, or maybe ghosts really could smell or taste fear, but one spotted them and the whole swarm turned to rush at him.

"Aie!" Naruto shrieked and turned to run, tripped, and curled into a ball, mind blank with fear.

The ghosts were going to get him. They were going to suck the life out of him. And he was going to die.

There were flashes of heat around him. And there were bursts of electricity that made all the little hairs on his body stand on end. But he felt no pain, and the ghosts never got him…and then it got quiet.

Slowly uncurling, Naruto peered around to find that all the ghost pokémon had gone. Some nearby leaves were singed and there was a small fresh lightning scar on one of the trees. Demon and the raichu were panting, holding defensive positions on either side of him.

"Thanks," he muttered, embarrassed at his panic.

Wobbling to his feet, Naruto dusted himself off and looked around. He didn't see any of the ghosts anywhere, but that didn't mean that they weren't still around. Ghosts were sneaky like that; they could hide in the shadows and even inside solid objects and then pop out with no warning.

Sweating with nerves, he stumbled back into the clearing where there were fewer places for ghosts to hide. With how open it was, it surely was a good place to wait to be found. The Forest of Death was so dense that any clearing would be on a map.

But…

"This clearing…" Naruto glanced around as he picked his way to the center of the clearing.

It was choked with broken branches and fallen, splintered trees. There were burn marks all over, and even a patch of what looked like ice. It was like a battle had happened here and knocked down a swath of the forest.

"…Whoa."

A sad moan made him jump and spin around.

The purple shape that the ghosts had been focused on before was still there. It was a balloon, or at least he thought it was balloon. When it turned…he saw that it had a face.

"Huh?!" he jumped. "A pokémon?!"

It was…well…a purple balloon with a bright yellow X-shape between two little beady eyes. There was a wisp of white cloud-like stuff on the top and one or two dangly strings hanging from the bottom. It even sort of made sounds like a balloon—squeaks like leaking air and moans like a person could make by trying to talk through a balloon.

"Funky," Naruto muttered and reached for his pokédex to find out just what the heck it was.

The strange balloon pokémon whimpered and tried to float away, only to be stopped short. Its strings were tangled around a broken branch, preventing it from escaping. The ghosts had probably been picking on it because it was trapped.

"Poor guy… Let me help you."

Forgetting his pokédex, he walked closer to untangle it from the branch and set it free. But when he got within a few feet of it, it puffed up like a blowfish, startled him backwards. He tried again and again to approach, but it would always overinflate itself and strain against its strings to try and flee.

"Well this isn't working." Naruto rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully and then turned to the two pokémon by his side. "Do you think you can distract it? I don't know…talk to it, or something?"

The vulpix and raichu moved closer and tried to speak with the living balloon. Naruto used all his sneaking skills to slink closer once the pokémon was fully engaged with the electric mouse and fire fox. He finally got close enough to touch the strings (which had little yellow hearts on the ends) and delicately began un-knotting them.

When the strings finally came loose, Naruto pumped his fist in victory. "Yeah! Alrigh—_hrk!_"

A large, callused hand closed over the back of his neck and squeezed.

"Well, well…what do we have here?"

* * *

_:You see, you're fine,:_ Demon snorted at the wimpy balloon pokémon. _:He didn't do anything bad to you, just like we said he wouldn't.:_

_:You're free now!:_ Kiroi cried waving her brown paws.

_:…Free?:_ the drifloon warbled.

_:Yeah, free,:_ Demon sighed. _:Go now…or whatever.:_

"Yeah! Alrigh—_hrk!_"

Demon whirled around to find Whisker Face frozen and pale, the dark silhouette of a full-sized human looming behind him.

"Well, well…" a dark voice chuckled. "What do we have here?"

Several other human shapes emerged from the darkness, and then there was the blinding light of flashlights.

_:Argh, bright!:_ Demon growled, shielding his eyes from the glare.

"A little baby trainer, huh?" another voice muttered.

"Yeah," the first voice chuckled. "A little baby trainer…all alone."

"Good, good—"

"Hey look at that vulpix!" a third, excitable voice cried. "Look at that funky color!"

"I heard something about a vulpix like that appearing in Suna City…" a fourth voice said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, when Kin, Zaku, and Dosu were sent to steal that thing from that museum and tried to steal the gym leader's funky-colored linoone while they were there," the second voice said. "You were that little punk from Fire Country weren't you…"

"You jerks are from Team Sound," Whisker Face yelped. "You let me go—_aah!_"

Demon rubbed at his eyes and squinted against the light. _:What are they doing to him?!:_

_:I can't see!:_ Kiroi squeaked.

_:His arm…:_ the drifloon moaned from above them._ :They're twisting it!:_

"Get those plastic handcuffs," the first voice growled. "Strip him of his belt. We'll take all his pokémon…and his money, and whatever else he has of value. Go through his bag."

"Digger, Spike, take down that vulpix and raichu!" the second voice called out.

A dark shape exploded out of the blinding light and hit Demon, pinning him to the dirt. Whatever it was was heavy and no matter how he struggled he couldn't get free or turn enough to blow fire on it. All he could see was Kiroi being pinned down by a spiny sandslash, which was wholly unaffected by the bursts of electricity that it was receiving.

_:Hey, brother!:_ the pokémon pinning Demon laughed. _:Do you feel anything?:_

_:Nope, Digger, I don't,:_ the sandslash chuckled. _:Knock it off you silly raichu. You know you can't hurt me or my brother. Stop wasting your juice.:_

_"Brother",_ Demon thought. _They both must be the same species…_

"Vampire, hit that drifloon with a _mean look_!" the fourth voice ordered, and there was the sound of leathery wings flapping.

_:Hey you!:_ a squeaky voice above them hissed, apparently to the drifloon. _:If you try and run, I'll hunt you down and tear you into tiny little pieces before I eat you!:_

_:Nooo…:_ the balloon moaned fearfully. _:No, don't look at me like that! I won't run away, I promise!:_

_Wuss,_ Demon growled. _We shouldn't have stopped to help him. This is all his fault._

"No, no stop it!" Whisker Face shouted. "Give those back! Hey—don't touch that!"

"Well look-ee here!" the third voice crowed. "Evolution stones! A firestone _and_ a thunderstone!"

"Those are mine!" Whisker Face howled. "Don't touch them!"

"Quit struggling you brat!" the first voice growled. "Or I'll start breaking bones!"

"Just hit him," the fourth grumbled. "Knock him out so he'll shut up."

There were footsteps, and then a pair of boots in front of Demon's snout. "A little pink ribbon with a bell. How girly. Digger, cut it off."

Demon felt two claw tips drag along his back, and then the ribbon around his neck snapped. The Team Sound human removed the ribbon, jingling the bell. Then he dropped it on the dirt and ground it under his heel.

"There, that's better!"

_:…My bell…:_

The pressure on his back lifted and a human hand grasped him by the scruff of the neck, lifting him to eye-level with a cruel pair of gray eyes.

"You are going to net us a nice bonus little foxy! The boss _loves_ freaks like you…"

"_OW_—"

"Grab him—"

"Hey—"

The bad human that had Demon by the neck lurched and dropped the fox as he fell. Demon darted out of the way and—with the flashlights no longer pointed to blind—he finally got a good look at the scene. The human that had held Whisker Face was curled up on the ground like he was hurt, two others were looking on, and Whisker Face—whose hands were bound behind him—had tackled the fourth. One of the two who was still standing hefted Whisker Face off the fourth one and kicked him in the side.

"What the hell?!" the fourth one sputtered.

"He kicked me," the one curled up whined.

"It was a low blow," one of the others snickered. "Below the belt."

"Nasty brat," the kicker growled and gave Whisker Face another kick.

Whisker Face coughed and gasped like he couldn't breathe.

_:Bastard!:_ Demon snarled and set the kicker's hair on fire. _:Take that!:_

"Digger, _crush claw_!"

Demon yelped and darted to the side just as the sandslash's large claws slammed down where he'd been crouching.

_:Hold still you freaky punk!:_

_:I'm not a freak!:_ Demon barked and spat a _will-o-wisp_ at the ground-type mouse. _:Burn!:_

_:Ow!:_ the sandslash squealed, favoring a burned knee. _:Now it's on!:_

_:Bring it, dirt-brain!:_ Demon snarled and spewed a burning-hot _flamethrower_ at his foe.

Even limping from the burn, the sandslash skirted the worst of the flames and charged in. Demon had to keep darting and dodging from the other monster's large claws. And then he tripped—

A pair of heavy vines lashed out and swatted the charging sandslash away. A looming plant-ish shape interposed itself between Demon and the sandslash. Off to the side with the humans there was another fight breaking out—human against human, it looked like—but Demon couldn't get a good look…

_:Hana!:_ Kiroi squeaked. _:Get it off of me!:_

There was a flurry of cracking vines as the venusaur lashed at both sandslash, freeing the raichu in the process. Once freed, Kiroi attacked the golbat that had the rescued drifloon intimidated out of fleeing with a few good _thunderbolt_s. With the enemy pokémon thoroughly taken care of, Demon edged around Hana's bulk to see what was going on with Whisker Face and the other humans.

Kiroi and Hana's master had arrived and was doing his best to beat up the four Team Sound humans. It was fascinating to watch, as Demon could never recall seeing humans physically fight each other. But Look-Alike seemed damaged and in poor health so his blitzing attack was soon halted.

"You got him?!" one wheezed, clutching his stomach where he'd been punched.

"Yeah! I got the bastard!" the large one who had first grabbed Whisker Face yelled.

"Hurry up and bind him!" another ordered.

"Call your monsters off!" the fourth shouted, pulling out a sharp blade and putting his knee on Whisker Face's back. "Call them off or we slit the kid's throat!"

_:Oh no!:_ Kiroi panicked from her perch on the fainted golbat's back. _:What do we do?!:_

Hana hesitated and started to lower the sandslash monsters, which she'd suspended upside-down with her vines. _:I…don't know.:_

Demon's eyes were fixed on the knife that hovered dangerously close to Whisker Face's neck. _No…_

* * *

Things just kept getting worse and worse. The last ambush on his party had separated him from Kiroi and left Kyuubi so exhausted that he'd had to put the ninetails away. Only Hana and Gama were in good enough shape to be kept out with him, so he chose his venusaur.

He'd searched and searched for his lost raichu. He couldn't bear the thought of Team Sound or their mysterious criminal partners stealing her and brainwashing her to serve them. But what he eventually found was even worse than he had imagined.

Naruto was there, his wrists bound behind him and crumpled on the ground. Four Team Sound goons had him surrounded and, from the state of his possessions scattered on the ground, were in the process of robbing him. Minato didn't even remember starting to run at them.

He didn't wonder why Naruto was out in the Forest of Death in the middle of the night. He didn't wonder how the boy had managed to get neck-deep in trouble with some of the criminals that had been chasing him around for over twenty-four hours. He didn't think about anything but hurting those four men with his bare hands.

He was exhausted from all the running and not sleeping. He was thirsty and starving. But somehow he found enough adrenalin to fight.

It didn't last though. One tripped him and another struggled to pin him. There was shouting to tie him up and some threats, but all he could see was Naruto curled up on the dirt, wide-eyed and frightened, and with a survival knife held to his throat.

_No!_ Minato tried to buck against the weight of the man that pinned him, but the shot of adrenalin was spent and he was too weak. _No, no, no, no, no…_

"…I said call your monsters off!" one of them shouted. "Get them to surrender and we won't kill the kid!"

Panic addled his already fatigue-fuzzed brain. He had no idea what monsters they were talking about or why he should be calling them off. But if doing that would somehow get that knife away from his son…

"Stop…" he wheezed feebly into the dirt.

A dark shape materialized from the darkness and slammed into the goon kneeling on Naruto, knocking him off and sending the knife flying off into the night. In the next second, Minato felt the hefty criminal that was sitting on him be removed similarly. He sat up and tried to get to Naruto, but he couldn't quite get to his feet. A pair of young trainers grabbed his son and started half-carrying, half-dragging him away. And then Tsunade was there with her nidoqueen and sceptile, grasping his shoulder in a comforting gesture.

The blonde gym leader gave her two powerful monsters a simple command:

"Hime, Konoha, trash them!"


	5. Part V

**Forest of Death**

_Part V_

Naruto winced as he rubbed his wrists where the plastic ties had dug into his skin. Sakura had tried to get them off by picking at them with her fingernails, but that hadn't worked so Sasuke's charmeleon had had to cut the plastic off with his claws. The removal of the ties had been made all the more difficult by Shadow, who'd been so glad to find him again that the umbreon wouldn't stop licking his face which made it very hard to sit still.

"I'm okay," Naruto muttered as he tried to keep his face from getting licked raw. "Really, Shadow, I'm glad that you found me. You can stop licking me now."

"How do you get into these messes?" Sasuke grumbled.

"I don't do it on purpose," Naruto pouted. "The creeps snuck up on me!"

"You could've died," Sakura frowned. "That one had a knife to your throat."

"I know," Naruto mumbled with a shiver.

He remembered the knife. Even though it had never touched him, he knew where it had been pointing. And if Team Sound was ready to kill police officers, they definitely wouldn't be afraid of killing one little trainer.

"Ow!"

Naruto turned his head to watch Tsunade and her blissey treat the League Champion's various scrapes, cuts, and burns, while her sceptile and nidoqueen gleefully tied the Sound goons and their monster minions to a tree trunk with vines.

"Relax," Tsunade grumbled. "I barely touched you! Now hold still…"

_He looks so tired,_ Naruto thought as he watched…his father…wince when Tsunade rubbed an alcohol wipe over a filthy cut. _He went out with the first bunch of police officers last night. They must've chased him and chased him…all night and all day and all night again._

"The officers…" the older trainer hissed around clenched teeth. "Did you…find any of them?"

"A few," the gym leader answered softly. "We…couldn't help them. Our party was attacked and scattered before we could find any more."

The man's shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his eyes, looking even more worn.

Naruto chewed at his lip for a moment before slipping off the fallen tree he'd been sitting on, picked his way around some fallen branches, edged up to his father, and mutely offered up his chocolate candy bar.

"For me?" he asked hoarsely, and when Naruto nodded, he took the candy. "Thank you—_yowch!_"

"Ooh," Tsunade clucked her tongue as she studied part of the Champion's arm with her flashlight. "It looks like there are some splinters here. Let me get my tweezers…"

"Great," he muttered and fumbled with the candy's wrapper.

"Naruto," Sakura held up his half-emptied bag, "this is yours, right?"

"Yeah." Naruto hurried over to take it and started searching the ground for his scattered things. "Those jerks went through my bag…"

"Where did you get evolution stones?" Sasuke asked, holding the thunderstone in one hand and the firestone in the other.

"They're an early birthday present," Naruto replied, snatching the stones from the Uchiha's hands and stuffing them back in their box before anyone saw the note still in it.

Sakura paused in picking through fallen leaves for some of Naruto's lost things and eyed the glowing stones curiously. "Your mom bought you evolution stones?"

Money had always been on the tight side in his home growing up. Professor Sarutobi was very generous in paying his mother for her work, but she only worked for him part-time and Konoha Town became a more expensive place to live once the professor retired there and a bunch of wealthy families followed him. The only reason that they'd had such a nice little house was because it had been left to his mother by the nice old lady who used to live in it. Kaede-san, the old Berry Lady, had had no living relatives and had grown attached to him and his mother, so when she faded away when he'd was four, the house had become theirs.

Naruto didn't answer Sakura's question. If he said yes, it would be a lie. If he told her the truth, he'd have to explain his…complicated…family. So he just focused on finding his stuff and shoving it back in his bag.

"Alright," Tsunade said to the Champion as she started packing up her first aid kit. "That should do it. If anything gives you trouble, go to the hospital."

"Thank you," he replied, and then yawned.

"Go on, get out of here," Tsunade snorted, "before you fall asleep. And take these kids with you, will you?"

The man nodded meekly and got back to his feet. Satisfied that he'd found all of his stuff Naruto, along with Demon and Shadow, hurried back over to the two adults. Sasuke and Sakura and their pokémon were right behind him. Tsunade summoned her leafeon and whispered some instructions to it before sending them all off.

"Nawaki will be sure to lead you back to Senju City," she informed them. "I used to lend him to Dan a lot…so he's familiar with every corner of this forest."

"Are…you sure you'll be alright by yourself, Tsunade-oba-san?" the Champion asked uneasily. "I'm sure that there are a lot more of these goons out here…"

"They're leaving," Sasuke said.

"Yeah," Sakura nodded eagerly. "We were hiding in some bushes and overheard a few of them talking about what they'd been doing here and how they were leaving now."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "And what were they doing here?"

"They poached and stole pokémon, they did some studying of the Mossy Stone, and…" Sakura frowned in thought for a moment. "And some people they called 'Akatsuki' were looking for some kind of green fairy, but I don't think they found it."

The Champion scratched at the back of his head. "A green fairy?"

"Anything else?" Tsunade probed.

"They said that their leader was allied with this 'Akatsuki' thing," Sasuke added.

"Huh," Tsunade laughed. "What handy little spies you two are! Now away with all of you." She waved her hands at them. "Shoo!"

They needed no further prompting and were soon on their way, following the leafeon's lead. Their hike was a silent as they trudged through the dark trees. With the late hour, their exhausted states, the fear of other potential enemies, and all the shocking things that had happened, none of them felt like talking.

Shadow seemed to hear something and paused to growl off into the darkness. Naruto tensed and they all braced themselves for whatever might come at them next. When the wobbly little balloon pokémon, drifloon, entered the light cast off from Dragon the charmeleon and Kiroi the raichu they were tempted to collapse from the sudden break in tension.

"A balloon pokémon?" Sakura blinked.

"A drifloon," the Champion muttered. "Weird… This species is never found in dense forests like this. They stay up in the sky or in windy places like wide open fields and grasslands."

"Oh, it's you again." Naruto patted Shadow's head to calm the growling umbreon and picked his way through some tall weeds to where the drifloon hovered nervously. "Why didn't you just float away?"

The purple drifloon lifted its string-like arms and presented him with an object.

"…The soothe bell?" The pink ribbon had been sliced and was stained with dirt. The silver sphere of the bell was significantly dented and there was more dirt packed in its crevices. When Naruto jingled it, it made a dull clunking sound instead of the melodious chime. "Aw, it's broken."

The drifloon wilted with a sad squeak.

"Don't worry about it." Naruto shoved the ruined bell into his pocket and patted the balloon, whose skin felt cool and very much like an ordinary rubber balloon. "Thanks for bringing it to me anyway."

It made a happier squeak and wrapped its string arms around his wrist.

Naruto grinned. He hadn't set out to catch any pokémon while he was here—this wasn't the situation to do such things. But it looked like he'd done it anyway. With how friendly it was being, he was sure that he could persuade it to join him easily, and if it joined him by choice it would work out better than a pokémon he attacked and weakened to capture it.

_With a little bit of special training, I think I should be able to teach it how to carry letters to mom if I decide to stay out in the wilds for a long time. That is…if it's a flying type, or has __**levitate**__. I should check…_

He started digging around for his pokédex with his free hand—

"Naruto, that's a—"

"Quiet."

Frowning, Naruto turned back to see Sasuke shushing Sakura. Both had their own pokédexes out and open. Sakura looked worried, Sasuke looked annoyed at her, and…his father just watched him curiously.

"What?" Naruto asked.

"Nothing," Sasuke muttered, putting his pokédex away. "Let's just get out of here."

Sakura looked unsure, but followed his example.

"Sasuke, somehow I don't believe you…" Naruto muttered as he returned to the faint trail with the drifloon still clinging to his wrist.

"Don't worry about it," the Champion advised as they started down the path again. "She might've been worried about some of the information on drifloon in the pokédex."

"What sort of information?" Naruto wondered.

"That drifloon tug on children's wrists to steal them away," the older trainer answered. "It's something of an old wives' tale. Drifloon aren't strong enough to carry much, so most children are too heavy. And so the kids usually just play with the drifloon like real balloons until the pokémon runs away, or stays for good. I don't think I've ever heard of a drifloon actually succeeding."

"Weird," Naruto said thoughtfully.

"If you really want to hear weird things about pokémon, check out the entry on luvdisc sometime," his father chuckled.

_Luvdisc?_ Naruto rubbed at a scarred cheek. _I wonder what sort of pokémon that is…_

* * *

The next morning, Naruto yawned as he brushed his teeth in the pokémon center bathroom. They'd made it back to Senju City without incident—no further encounters with the bad guys, or attacks from angry wild pokémon. His father had disappeared to his hotel, and he and his friends had dragged themselves to the pokémon center where they could sleep.

Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were already there and waiting for them. They'd managed to escape from the chaos and get straight back to the city without any injury. After alerting the few police that were still in the city, the three of them had gone to the pokémon center to wait. Well, Kiba had wanted to go back in and help, but Shino overruled him and almost sat on him to keep him from going anyway.

When Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke had returned to their pokémon center beds, their old classmates pounced on them before they could get to sleep. In fact, Hinata had gone so far as to hug Naruto before just as abruptly letting him go with a stuttered apology. Too worn out to really care about anything, Naruto left it to Sakura and Sasuke to share information as he crawled straight into bed and slept.

_Man, I'm still beat…_ he thought as he went about washing his face and then getting dressed. _Last night really sucked. That made Suna City seem like a walk in the park…or a walk on the beach…without the ocean._

Once he was dressed, Naruto headed down to the ground level to retrieve his pokémon (which he'd submitted for treatment) and do some tweaking to his line-up. Now that the mess in the Forest of Death was pretty much over, it was time to get back to the real reason that he'd come to this city. He needed to prepare for his gym battle with Tsunade so that he could get the Leaf badge.

_I've seen four of the pokémon that she keeps on hand: nidoqueen, blissey, sceptile, and leafeon. Typhoon would really only be useful against the nidoqueen…if it didn't know __**thunderbolt**__…and since Tsunade really gets aggressive when facing gyarados, I should send him away for a while. And with nidoqueen immune to electricity, and sceptile and leafeon resistant to electricity, Bolt won't be of much use, so I could send him off too…_

_…That leaves two empty spaces to fill. So if I—_

"Oh, Sasuke-kun! I've missed you _so much_!"

"Hey! Let go of his arm, Ino-pig!"

"Make me, Forehead-girl!"

"Let. Go. _Now_."

Naruto paused, half-way between the stairs and the counter, and stared as Sakura and Ino quarreled and Sasuke just looked angry.

_Ino? When did she get here? And if Ino's here…_

Scanning the wide open lobby of the pokémon center, Naruto spied Chouji and Shikamaru sitting on a couch, barely paying attention to what Ino was doing. Shikamaru looked half-asleep, as usual. And Chouji was demolishing a bag of potato chips, also as usual.

_Geeze, it's like we're back in school in Konoha Town…_

Jamming his hands into his pockets, he slipped around the scene that the two girls were making and plopped down on the couch beside Chouji.

"Morning," he greeted. "When did you guys get here?"

"Hi, Naruto!" Chouji greeted cheerfully with a wave. "You're here, too, huh?"

"We got in yesterday evening," Shikamaru muttered. "We tried staying in the center closer to the contest hall, but it was too full so we had to come here. It was very troublesome."

_Yesterday evening… So they totally missed the police recruiting trainers. And if they went to bed early, they missed us all coming back from the forest._

"What happened to your chin?" Chouji asked around a mouthful of potato chips.

Naruto fingered the darkening bruise on his chin and winced a bit. "Oh, I tripped out in the forest." He watched the two girls bicker for a moment before speaking lowly to his two old friends. "How long do you think it'll take for Sasuke to sneak away?"

"Ten minutes," Chouji guessed.

"Twelve," Shikamaru countered after a moment's observation. "So…aside from planting your face out in the forest, what have you been up to?"

"I got more badges," Naruto proudly informed them, flashing the inside of his jacket where he wore the decorated metal pins. "And I got more pokémon," he added, and released Shadow (who had evolved since they'd last met) along with Gamakichi and Sandy.

"Cool!" Chouji grinned.

"Impressive," Shikamaru remarked.

"Aie! A bug!" Ino wailed, abruptly latching onto Sasuke's arm with a death-grip. "Sasuke-kun, save me!"

Sandy the vibrava certainly looked like a bug. She had large green eyes, green-and-black diamond-shaped wings, a long tail, and black insect-like legs. But in spite of her dragonfly appearance, she was a dragon and ground type—not a bug type at all.

Stung by Ino's fear, Sandy wilted in mid-air (with her _levitate_ ability let her float, even when her wings didn't move) and drifted over to land on Naruto's shoulders.

"Hey, Sandy isn't a bug, she's a dragon," Naruto scowled. "What's to be scared of Ino? She's not even bothering you."

"I know a bug when I see one," Ino whimpered, trying to use Sasuke as a human shield between herself and Sandy. "It has those giant bug eyes and those creepy bug legs and a whole bunch of other ugly bug parts—it's a bug!"

"She's not a bug!" Naruto insisted, shaking his fist at the blonde girl.

"Naruto is correct," Shino interjected, seemingly appearing from nowhere, but with how quiet he usually was he'd probably been nearby and watching for a while. "Vibrava is not a bug-type pokémon at all, but a dragon and ground type. Although, in terms of breeding, vibrava and its whole evolutionary line belong to the 'bug' group."

"I don't care what type it is," Ino snapped. "If it looks like a bug, it _is_ a bug!"

"Would you let go?!" Sasuke hissed. "I'm starting to lose feeling in my arm!"

"I don't see why Ino hates bugs so much," Chouji sighed, releasing his butterfree, which lazily circled over all of their heads. "She loves Cho and he's a bug."

"Cho is a _butterfly_, not a _bug_," Ino replied, ignoring Sasuke's demand. "Butterflies are cute and harmless and gentle and graceful. Bugs are ugly and disgusting and creepy!"

Sandy sagged more heavily on Naruto's shoulders.

"Sandy is not ugly!" Naruto fumed.

"Man, I just don't get girls," Kiba grumbled as he trudged onto the scene with Akamaru and plopped on the couch next to Shikamaru.

"Ino, let go of his arm before I have Pinky pry you off," Sakura threatened with a glare.

"Not until that bug goes away!" Ino insisted.

Naruto stuck his tongue out at the Yamanaka girl and put Sandy, along with Gamakichi and Shadow, away. "Don't listen to Ino," he said to the vibrava's pokéball. "She's crazy. She's looking for the ugliest fish pokémon ever so that she can make it beautiful."

"I am not crazy!" Ino snapped, releasing Sasuke's arm at last. "And feebas may be ugly, but when I make it beautiful, it will evolve into the most beautiful pokémon in the world and I'll win all the beauty contests without breaking a sweat!"

"Whatever," Naruto snorted and left the cluster of old classmates in search of a free terminal to use. "I need to get ready to challenge the gym."

No one followed him or called after him and Naruto quickly found a terminal where he could exchange active pokémon for stored pokémon and make calls. He reluctantly sent away Typhoon and Bolt, whispering apologies as he made the transfers. In exchange for them, he called up Spooky the haunter and Drifter the drifloon.

_I'll have to do a lot of training with these guys before I can challenge Tsunade again,_ he thought as he studied the great-ball and pokéball. _Spooky is barely tame and I barely know anything about their attacks and abilities. …And I need to work up the nerve to command a ghost._

But before any of that, he had one thing to do first: call home.

After several rings, his mother's image came into the focus on the video screen…and she frowned at him.

_"How did you bruise your face?"_

"I fell," Naruto shrugged. "It's nothing." There was no way he was telling his mother that he'd tangled with a bunch of criminals that had tried to kill him. She'd freak. "I made it to Senju City. I meant to call sooner, but I totally got distracted with finding the gym leader and stuff."

His mother eyed him suspiciously for a moment. _"Alright. So, have you found Tsunade yet?"_

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "I'll make my official challenge in a few weeks. I need to do some training and strategizing first."

_"Well I wouldn't use Typhoon if I were you,"_ his mother advised.

"I know," Naruto grimaced.

_"You found out about that, huh?"_ His mom looked curious. _"So what do you plan to do?"_

"I sent Bolt and Typhoon away for a while so I can use my two back-ups," Naruto replied.

_"Two? I know you have that haunter…but what else do you have?"_

"This!" Naruto grinned and set Drifter free. The purple balloon had never been indoors before and was fascinated by everything, especially the ceiling. Naruto had to gently pull it down by its strings so that his mom could see it. "Isn't it cool?"

His mother stared blankly back at him. _"Er…you're not afraid of it?"_

"No." Naruto frowned. "Why would I be?"

_"Well…that's a ghost pokémon."_

It took a good minute for that fact to sink it. "What?!"

_"…You didn't know?"_

Naruto shook his head vigorously. "It…it can't be! Ghost pokémon are creepy and scary! Drifter just looks cute and squishy!"

_"Naruto…"_ his mother sighed.

"What's wrong?"

Naruto jerked his head around to find his father watching him. He still looked tired, but a whole lot better than he had the night before. He wore long sleeves to hide the bandages on his arms, and there was a large bandage on his cheek. In his hand he had a cup of coffee.

"You never said that drifloon was a ghost pokémon!" Naruto sputtered.

"I never said that it wasn't," the older trainer shrugged. "Its type should only matter in matching it with an opponent you know."

_"Minato? Is that you? Come closer so that I can see you."_

"But…" Naruto wilted, fingering the heart-ends of Drifter's strings. "Why didn't you mention it before?"

The man moved closer, so that the video pick-up could see him too. "You seemed to like it so much before you knew that I saw no reason to tell you something that might frighten you away from it. Besides, as soon as you looked it up in the pokédex, you would've found out."

Naruto bit his lip. "Oh…"

_"Minato…what happened to __**your**__ face?"_

His father hesitated, and slowly turned to face the screen. "Oh, just a close call with a fire attack."

The red-haired woman stared hard at them through the video screen. _"I don't believe you! There's more to it than that, isn't there? One of you better tell me right now, or—"_

"It's a long story," the blond man laughed. "I'll call you a bit later and tell you all about it. Bye!" And then he cut the connection.

Naruto gaped at his father. "…She's gonna be really mad at you."

"I know," the man chuckled weakly. "But that's for me to worry about. You should worry about preparing for your gym battle, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Naruto agreed quietly. Then he gathered his nerve and set his jaw. "Yeah!"

And then he scampered out of the pokémon center in search of a good training place with Drifter bobbing along behind him.

_I need to get to training if I'm ever going to get the Leaf badge from grumpy old Tsunade!_

_…And next time I get beat up and call home, I need to remember to use "voice-only" mode._


	6. Part VI

**Forest of Death**

_Part VI_

Naruto nibbled on a stick of Pocky as he watched his monsters eat lunch. Gamakichi shoveled his food down like a pig. Sandy and Shadow were much slower and neater as they munched on their lunch. Demon ate apart from the others, jealously guarding his own meal. Drifter had already finished eating, and Spooky seemed more interested in playing with her food than eating it.

Spooky was a difficult creature to handle, and it didn't help any that she creeped him out. The haunter enjoyed goofing around and scaring anyone that she could. It was difficult to keep her focused and she wasn't always obedient to his commands.

Drifter was much easier to handle. The non-creepy ghost did his best to do as Naruto wanted. But it was a timid, gentle creature and had trouble battling. When it was time to fight, Drifter just wanted to run away.

The boy sighed and nibbled some more on his candy.

It had been nearly two weeks since the mess in the forest and he hadn't found out much about it aside from the fact that the rest of the missing police officers had been found alive except for one. Beyond a bunch of whispered rumors in the city about super criminals hiding out in the forest, Naruto hadn't heard anything. He was curious, but he did his best to focus on the reason that he'd come to Senju City in the first place: the Leaf badge.

_It's going to be tough,_ he knew. _Even if I didn't have troubles with ghosts. She's got a blissey and those always have a lot of health and healing moves, a nidoqueen with poison and lightning, a sceptile which is way more evolved than anything I have, and a leafeon. And I have no clue what else she might have…_

A shadow fell over him and Naruto looked up to find Sasuke staring down at him, eating a tomato like it was an apple.

"Ew!" was Naruto's immediate reaction. "How can you eat it like that?"

"I like tomatoes," Sasuke replied with a shrug.

The Uzumaki shuddered. "Yuck… What brings you out here?"

At the heart of Senju City was a smallish nature preserve where urban trainers could exercise and work with their pokémon. Leery of the next best place to train—the Forest of Death—Naruto spent his days in the wilderness park. So far, only Hinata had visited him, and only a few times when he got too into his training and forgot to come back in and eat the cheap pokémon center food.

Sasuke took another few bites out of his tomato before bothering to answer. "I've been thinking… Your mom didn't get you those evolution stones, did she?"

"I didn't steal them, so does it matter who I got them from?" Naruto countered.

"I noticed how your mom and Minato Namikaze interacted in Myouboku Town," the Uchiha continued. "Then there was that offer he made you to trade for your haunter. When you're around, he never notices me or Sakura. And you look so much alike…"

Naruto fiddled with his last stick of Pocky. "So what?"

"If you somehow didn't know before, you have to know now," Sasuke replied. "So why haven't you started bragging about it?" When Naruto failed to respond, the Uchiha did a little poking. "Did you find something unpleasant behind his celebrity façade? Or is it because he's trying to buy you off with nice things like stones and trades to make up for never being there?"

"Shut up!" Naruto snarled, leaping to his feet and jabbing Sasuke in the chest with his finger. "It's none of your business! And why do you even care?! You never care about anything unless it has to do with your obsession with beating your brother!"

"True," Sasuke conceded, unbothered by Naruto's anger. "But your behavior was out of character enough to catch my attention. I prefer it when I know what to expect from people, so I had to figure this out. Whatever the details of the situation are I really don't care. I just needed you to confirm what I thought so I could get my focus back to where it belongs."

Naruto glared and—too angry to think of anything better—stuck his tongue out at his childhood rival.

"Hn," Sasuke snorted and finished off his tomato. "I need to get back to my own training. Hope you don't fall flat on your again when you challenge Tsunade for real…and if you do, try to make it a little more entertaining than last time."

"Bastard!" Naruto shouted at the Uchiha's retreating back.

Sasuke wasn't the least bit bothered by the insult. Infuriatingly, he almost seemed proud to be labeled such a jerk. It was like some weird sort of family pride for Sasuke and his Uchiha brethren to be as jerk-ish as possible while not being physically mean.

Naruto steamed for a few more minutes before turning back to his pokémon, who had finished their lunch.

"Alright guys!" Naruto said, clapping his hands. "Let's get back to training! We're gonna kick grumpy old Tsunade's butt!"

_And after that, maybe we'll fight Sasuke too and stomp him flat!_

* * *

The interior of the Senju City gym was very elaborate. The battlefield was an open-air courtyard that was bare earth with grasses, bushes, small trees, and rock formations. Tsunade stood at the far end of the large space and sighed dramatically when Naruto entered the challenger's position. There weren't any bleachers like some gyms had so his friends (even Ino, who usually whined that gym battles were so crude and barbaric) found what vantage points that they could find on the challenger side of the field.

"I figured you'd be back," the gym leader grumbled. "I guess it was too much to hope that our alley fight would scare you off."

"Not a chance!" Naruto snorted. "What're the rules?"

"I will use four pokémon; you are free to use any pokémon that you have at your disposal. You may switch your monsters at anytime, but I cannot. The fights will be one-on-one. Whoever runs out of pokémon loses." Tsunade paused for a moment. "Any questions, or can we get this show on the road?"

"No questions," Naruto replied. "Let's start!"

"Fine then," Tsunade smirked. "Hashirama!"

The first monster she released was a willowy tree-like creature. It had short legs on a long body with branch-like arms and a forked branch shape on its head. But when Naruto did a quick bit of research on it with his pokédex…

"Sudowoodo…is a _rock type_?" Naruto sputtered. _Man, maybe I should've kept Typhoon… Dang it._

"That's right," Tsunade nodded. "Now pick your first monster."

"Okay…" The blond boy chewed over his options for a moment before making his selection. "Gamakichi!"

The poisonous toad made his energetic appearance and then Tsunade turned to Shizune, who would referee the fighting.

"Begin!" Shizune cried, chopping her hand through the air.

"_Rock smash_!" Naruto instructed, hoping to get the first move in.

"_Wood hammer_," Tsunade countered.

Gamakichi rushed in to try and shatter the sudowoodo's rock body with the fighting attack, only to be nailed by the green-glowing club-like "hands" of his foe. While the grass-type attack didn't have much effect type-wise, there was a lot of power behind it and the fighting toad was sent flying backwards. The croagunk quickly recovered and eyed his foe warily.

"_Mud bomb_!" Naruto commanded.

"_Mimic_," Tsunade countered.

The croagunk went about gathering up dirt to make a snowball out of mud, but the sudowoodo simply copied him. What followed was a brief game of dodge ball using globes of sticky, damp mud. Gamakichi luckily landed a hit first.

"Great!" Naruto grinned. "Now _brick break_!"

While the false tree staggered and tried the claw the blinding mud from its face, the fighting toad rushed in to deliver a devastating blow to the sudowoodo's trunk.

"_Low kick_ and _rock throw_," Tsunade barked.

The rock tree swept its leg low while Gamakichi was still close, tripping him up and knocking him to the ground. With the poison toad prone, the sudowoodo started hurling rocks. The mud reduced its accuracy, and _rock throw_ wasn't terribly accurate to begin with, but enough stones hit to cause some damage.

"Roll out of the way!" Naruto cried. "And use _mud slap_!"

Although much weaker than _mud bomb_, _mud slap_ was more accurate and had the same side effect of reducing the foe's accuracy. Once out of the line of fire, Gamakichi scooped up mud in his hands and slapped it on the sudowoodo's head. The fake tree cried out in pain and stumbled away, trying to rub the blinding dirt from its eyes.

Naruto grinned, sensing approaching victory. "Now try _rock smash_ again!"

The poisonous fighter rushed in to deliver what could be the final blow—

"_Flail_," Tsunade commanded.

The sudowoodo immediately began blindly thrashing and, because its health was getting low, the hits it landed were punishing.

Naruto clenched his teeth. The sudowoodo was hurting, but so was Gamakichi. Tsunade's pokémon was older and stronger, even though it was at a type disadvantage it could outlast his monster unless he did something to end things quickly.

"Gamakichi, _revenge_!"

The croagunk gathered its strength and lashed out with a flurry of fighting strikes that left the rock tree stumbling…and then it collapsed.

"Hashirama is unable to continue battling," Shizune announced. "Match one, over!"

Tsunade removed the false tree from the field. "Not bad," she remarked. "But what can you do against Katsuyu?"

Naruto blinked as what looked like a large slug appeared. It was pink and brown and it looked like it had three eyes. His pokédex identified it as a gastrodon, a ground and water type…leaving its sole weakness to grass types, something that Naruto didn't have.

_Aw crud…_

There was no point in keeping Gamakichi on the field. He was weak to ground types and he had no advantage on this new monster. And he was tired. There was no point in sacrificing him when his poison powers could be advantageous against Tsunade's grass monsters.

"That's enough for now, Gamakichi," Naruto said as he recalled the frog from the field. "It's time for Drifter to take a turn!"

Tsunade frowned at the sight of the ghostly balloon. "…I thought you were afraid of ghost types."

"I'm working on that," Naruto huffed. "Now let's go!"

"Fine," Tsunade agreed. "Katsuyu, _water pulse_!"

"Drifter, use _minimize_!"

The water slug fired a ring of water at the drifloon, but before it could hit the purple balloon shrank in size so that the compressed loop of water passed it by without effect.

Naruto grinned tensely. "Alright, now _stockpile._"

Still shrunken and highly evasive, Drifter started glowing as he sucked in energy.

"Hmm," Tsunade frowned in thought. "_Rain dance_."

The gastrodon started to wriggle and sway and a faint blue aura surrounded it. The sky above the open courtyard swiftly darkened as clouds rolled in. And then a light rain started to fall, weakening any fire attacks while giving water attacks a boost.

"_Stockpile_ again and then use _spit up_!" Naruto instructed.

"_Harden_," Tsunade commanded.

While the large slug stiffened up, raising its defenses, Drifter sucked in even more energy and then fired it all at his foe. The gastrodon shuddered under the blast, but the damage it took wasn't as much as Naruto had hoped. This battle wouldn't be quick or easy.

"_Gust,_" Naruto called out.

Drifter summoned up a swirling gust of wind, but it wasn't a particularly powerful attack—it barely made the firmly rooted slug move.

"Desperate?" Tsunade smirked. "Katsuyu, _muddy water_!"

The pink and brown slug loosed a torrent of water at the earthen ground, kicking up a moderate-sized wave of murky water. Drifter tried to gain altitude to avoid it, but he wasn't fast enough and the muddy wave swamped him. His _minimize_ was broken and he returned to regular size, badly battered by the powerful water attack.

Naruto clenched his teeth. "Drifter, _payback_!"

The purple balloon gathered up energy and unleashed a dark blast of vengeance at his attacker. It was a powerful dark-type attack, and one of the strongest that Drifter had in his arsenal. And since the gastrodon had just landed a punishing hit, _payback_ was even stronger.

"_Water pulse _again, Katsuyu," Tsunade barked to her monster.

"_Stockpile_!" Naruto yelled.

Katsuyu fired another ring of pressurized water at Drifter. The drifloon gathered energy and while doing so his defense was raised. So when the circle of water clipped him, he withstood its force better.

"_Stockpile_ and _swallow_!"

Drifter sucked in more energy, and then absorbed it all, restoring a chunk of his lost health.

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. "Two can play at that game. Katsuyu, _recover_!"

Naruto almost wanted to cry as he watched the slug regain almost all of its health, more than what his drifloon had regained.

"Drifter," Naruto called out, "_ominous wind_!"

The flying ghost summoned a dark storm of winds that whipped the light rain still falling from the _rain dance_ into a cold, stinging blast. The powerful ghost attack had the gastrodon reeling for a moment. And, as a side effect, Drifter's abilities spontaneously boosted, making him stronger, faster, and tougher.

The gym leader looked only mildly impressed. "Okay Katsuyu, _sludge bomb_."

Katsuyu spat a purplish glob of poisonous gunk and hit Drifter almost dead center, making the ghostly balloon wilt and shudder.

_This is going nowhere,_ Naruto knew. _It has __**recover**__, which is more powerful and faster than Drifter's two-step __**stockpile**__ and __**swallow**__ combo. This gastrodon will outlast him, and could outlast anyone else I pit against it. I think…drastic measures are the only real option…_

"Drifter, _constrict_!"

The tired balloon flew in and wrapped his string arms tightly around the gastrodon's neck, but it was a weak attack made even less effective by such flimsy arms.

"Now I _know_ you're desperate," Tsunade snorted. "Just get your drifloon off the field if you can't think of what to do with it."

Naruto ignored the gym leader's half-taunting advice. "I'm sorry to ask you this, Drifter, but…_explosion_!"

Tsunade inhaled sharply. "What—"

The drifloon glowed brightly for a moment before exploding with a tremendous blast of power. And since he'd been clinging directly to the gastrodon's neck, all that power hit the slug at point blank range. Once the blinding flash and dust had cleared, there was a shallow crater in the field, the drifloon was collapsed and flattened, and the gastrodon wobbled and collapsed.

"A double knock-out!" Shizune announced. "Katsuyu and Drifter are both unable to battle. Match two is over!"

"Huh, I didn't think you'd do something so extreme," Tsunade admitted. "Oh well…" She removed her collapsed gastrodon as the _rain dance_ waned, leaving a cloudy but rainless sky behind. "Konoha, your turn!"

The dinosaur-like grass-lizard bounded onto the field, surprisingly fast and agile for its size.

Naruto response to that choice was simple. "Demon!"

His golden vulpix faced off against the sceptile, which dwarfed it by several feet in height. It wasn't a good match-up, except in types. Sceptile, as a pure grass-type, was at a hefty disadvantage against the pure fire of a vulpix.

"What an interesting color," Tsunade murmured. "I didn't notice before…"

"How pretty," Shizune smiled.

From behind him, Naruto could hear Ino muttering how battling with such a rare and stunning creature was a criminal waste.

"_Fire spin_!" Naruto instructed.

"_Agility_," Tsunade countered.

Demon created a swirling tornado of fire, but with _agility_'s speed boost the sceptile easily danced out of the way of the inferno, leaving the attack wasted.

"_Screech_ and _quick attack_," the gym leader commanded.

The sceptile let out an ear-splitting sound, sharply reducing Demon's ability to defend himself, and then rushed in for a speedy strike that knocked Demon off his paws.

"Damn," Naruto muttered. "Demon, _flamethrower_!"

Shaking off the stinging blow, the vulpix hopped back up and loosed a blistering stream of fire at his foe.

"_Detect_," Tsunade barked. "And then _slam_."

Sensing the direction of the blast of fire, the sceptile again danced around it and darted in to slam its bushy tail onto Demon with great force.

_Damn it!_ Naruto silently cursed. _At least __**detect**__ can't be used several times in a row without a significant chance of it failing…_ "Keep using _flamethrower_!"

Demon rolled out from under the sceptile's bristly, fern-like tail and began spewing _flamethrower_ after _flamethrower_.

"_Agility_," Tsunade coolly ordered.

The bare earthen field became a mess of fire and desperate dodging. The dirt completely dried from the rain and turned hot with each missed stream of flame. And then the fire started taking its toll as grazes from the _flamethrower_s turned into more and more solid hits.

"_Night slash_!" Tsunade ordered.

Konoha, half-scorched by all the fire, rushed in with the long leaves on its forearms glowing black.

"_Will-o-wisp_!" Naruto called out when the sceptile was too close to dodge it.

Demon spat dark ghostly embers into the sceptile's red-striped gut, causing crippling burns and interrupting the impending _night slash_ attack.

"Ha!" Naruto grinned, tasting victory. "Now _fire spin_!"

The small tornado of fire hit this time, as the grass-lizard couldn't dodge it with its burns, and the fire just kept burning and burning as it restricted the sceptile's movements to almost nothing.

"What a relentless brat you are," Tsunade growled. "Konoha, break loose and use _leaf storm_!"

Charging through the flames in spite of the pain, the sceptile seemed to shed glowing leaves from everywhere and then the dense cloud of sharp green swirled towards Demon, catching the fire fox in a storm of cutting foliage.

_Wow,_ Naruto blinked. _Grass types hate fire. That sceptile must really love and respect her to run through fire for her._

"That sceptile can't have a lot of strength left," Naruto noted, as he watched the lizard struggle to keep its feet. "Demon, finish it with a _quick attack_!"

Fighting through the last of the cutting leaves, Demon darted towards the panting sceptile.

"_Leaf blade_!" Tsunade snapped.

Just as Demon was about to land his hit, the sceptile brought its arm leaves—glowing green—around like a samurai blade and sliced into the vulpix, cutting through fur and into flesh enough to draw some blood.

"Ah!" Naruto winced as if the blade had cut him and not his monster. _That's wicked!_ "Demon, one last _flamethrower_!"

Staggering backwards, the golden fire fox spat another gush of flame, knocking the sceptile back and out.

"Konoha is unable to battle," Shizune announced. "Match three is over."

"I hate to admit it, but you're impressing me," Tsunade sighed as she removed her collapsed sceptile from the battlefield. "Your beasts are performing far better than mine are. But, I suppose this is what I get for slacking off and leaving all the work to Shizune for so long. My skills have gotten rather rusty. But now it's time for my closer…"

In a flash of light, Hime the nidoqueen landed on the field.

Naruto prepared to removed Demon from the field—

"Hime, _earth power_!"

The blue spiny beast glowed yellow for a moment and then stomped on the ground, sending cracks spidering over to and underneath Demon, blasting the little fox with a blast of yellow ground-type energy. When the glare of light was gone and the dust settled, Demon was out cold. Naruto winced, wishing he'd been a bit faster in getting Demon's pokéball back out.

"Demon is unable to battle," Shizune announced. "Challenger, select your next pokémon or withdraw."

"Alright, Sandy!" Naruto decided. "Your turn!"

The dragonfly-like vibrava appeared in a flurry of wings, wilting slightly at Ino's muffled squeak of fright and disgust.

"A dragon…" Tsunade remarked thoughtfully.

"Sandy, _dragon breath_!"

"Hime, _dig_!"

Sandy spat a spray of dragon flames that had the chance of paralyzing instead of burning, but the spiny blue monster burrowed into the dirt of the field, evading the attack.

Naruto scratched at the back of his head, puzzled. "You know with Sandy's _levitate_ that _dig_ attack isn't going to do anything…"

"True," Tsunade smirked. "But by hiding under the ground Hime takes no damages, suffers no risk of paralysis, and gets the element of surprise for her next strike. Hime, _body slam_!"

The nidoqueen burst from the dirt behind the hovering vibrava and belly-flopped onto the dragonfly, crushing her to the ground.

"Sandy, _screech_!" Naruto shouted, plugging his ears in preparation for the awful sound.

The vibrava vibrated her wings, creating a high-pitched sound that made the nidoqueen lurch backwards and clutch at her ears in pain.

"Now _dragon breath_ again!" he instructed, ears still covered against the teeth-rattling noise.

Sandy peeled herself out of the dirt and sprayed another blast of red-orange dragon-fire. Hime staggered back from the flames, but didn't succumb to their paralyzing power. The blue monster lunged forward and grabbed Sandy by her wings, halting her attack.

"Excellent," Tsunade smiled. "Now, Hime, _poison fang_."

The nidoqueen pulled Sandy closer and bite into her shoulder with fangs glistening with purple venom.

"_Sand tomb_!" Naruto ordered desperately.

The vibrava's eyes started to glow and the previously solid ground under the nidoqueen's feet dissolved into a swirling mass of quicksand, which didn't hurt the monster so much as startle her into releasing the dragonfly.

Naruto sighed a bit in relief. "Okay, now _faint attack_!"

Sandy appeared to fade from view, reappearing the moment she landed her strike, but…when she backed off, her flight was unusually wobbly.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Oh dear," Tsunade mock-sighed. "It seems that your monster has become poisoned. I can't tell if it came from the _poison fang_ or Hime's _poison point_ ability. Too bad."

_Damn it!_ Naruto cursed to himself. _Sandy won't last too long being poisoned. At least with __**sand tomb**__ that nidoqueen will have a hard time moving around._ "Okay, Sandy, _crunch _it into submission so we can end this!"

"Hime, _flatter_."

As the vibrava charged in to inflict a nasty bite, the nidoqueen started throwing bites of earth around like it was confetti and acting like a party was going on. Naruto was rather baffled by the odd display, but Sandy was even more confused. Her attack was halted and soon she was waffling around in the air as if she was seeing things.

"Huh, now your monster is poisoned _and_ confused," Tsunade remarked, folding her arms over her chest. "What are you going to do now?"

Naruto considered his options for a moment. He knew he didn't have any persim berries, which would cure Sandy's confusion. He had pecha berries that would relieve her of poison, but in her confused state she might not understand his instructions in taking the berry. With her health low and continually getting lower from the poison…he decided to pull her out for the time-being.

"That's enough, Sandy," Naruto sighed as he sucked her back into her ball with the red return laser. "Now it's Shadow's turn!"

The gym leader didn't look the least bit bothered to see the umbreon appear before her bogged-down nidoqueen.

"Shadow, give it a _confuse ray_!"

The dark eevee spat a wavering sphere of eerie light that left the nidoqueen glassy-eyed and befuddled. Tsunade, however, did have at least one persim berry on hand and wasted no time tossing it to her confused beast. Naruto hurried to take advantage of the nidoqueen's vulnerability before it could recover.

"And now use _assurance_!"

Shadow raced in and leapt up to pummel the trapped nidoqueen with a darkly glowing paw. But Hime downed her berry and snapped out of her confusion seconds before taking the attack. After taking the dark smack, the nidoqueen shook it off and was ready for her next command.

Tsunade didn't waste any time in giving it.

"_Superpower_!"

The spiny blue beast almost glowed with power and then lashed out with a flurry of fighting blows. Shadow was knocked end over end almost all the way to the other side of the field and when he finally skidded to a stop he could barely regain his feet. As a dark type, Shadow was weak against fighting-type attacks, and _superpower_ was one of the strongest attacks out there…

"Now get out of that sand and give it a _double kick_ to finish it!" the gym leader commanded.

Hime kicked free of the waning _sand tomb_ (which hadn't done much damage at all) and rushed in like a stampeding bull.

"_Quick attack_!" Naruto called out, feeling the sense of desperation rising again. "Try and trip that nidoqueen up!"

Shadow struggled to obey and did manage to hit Hime low, making the hefty beast stumble and crash face-first into the dirt. But the nidoqueen still lashed out with _double kick_ from the ground, clipping the umbreon in the jaw. The black monster bounced once… twice… and came to a stop in a heap.

He didn't get back up.

"Shadow is unable to battle," Shizune announced. "Challenger, choose another pokémon to continue or withdraw."

Naruto fingered the pokéballs on his belt as he thought over his last three choices. Sandy wouldn't be confused anymore after resting in her ball, but she'd still be poisoned and weak, and that would take a bit of time to fix. Gamakichi was healthier, but he wouldn't be at full power and he'd be very vulnerable to Hime's _earth power_. But he still had one monster left that was at full health and could stand up to both _earth power_ and _superpower_…

Sizing up the nidoqueen, he decided that it had to be a living tank. It had taken a lot of hits but had withstood them all and still had enough health to put up a good fight. With its list of powerful attacks it was just what Tsunade had called it: a closer.

Making his choice, Naruto pressed the button and released the beast of his choice into the air in front of him.

"…Are you sure that you don't like ghosts?" Tsunade asked as she stared at the haunter.

"I said that I'm working on that," Naruto insisted, and then nearly fell over backwards as Spooky decided to turn around suddenly and make a dumb face at him. "S-stop that! That way!" he gestured towards the panting nidoqueen. "Go that way!"

"This could be interesting," the blonde woman snorted. "Hime, _thunderbolt_!"

"_Sucker punch_!" Naruto squeaked, waving at Spooky who still seemed focused on making stupid faces at him. "Hurry up!"

Hime started building up charge on her horn when Spooky finally caught on that this wasn't a training fight and therefore was serious business. The spiky purple ghost spun around and rushed in, her floating hand turning black and slamming into the nidoqueen's chin. The sudden, startling blow shorted out the _thunderbolt_ and nearly had Hime fall on her tail.

Tsunade's golden-brown eyes narrowed. "_Crunch_."

"_Shadow ball_," Naruto countered.

The nidoqueen surged forward with her jaws open wide for a super-powered bite. The haunter gathered misty dark energies into a black and purple sphere and cast it straight into its foe's open mouth. The _shadow ball_ detonated, making Hime cough, gag, and stagger.

Naruto bit his lip before deciding to take a risky move. "_Curse_!"

"Try and _crunch_ it again!" Tsunade barked.

Spooky produced a sharp nail from thin air and drove it into herself, cutting her health in half to lay a voodoo-like curse on Hime. The blue nidoqueen wrapped her jaws around the haunter's body in a punishing _crunch_ attack. When the gnawing was over, Spooky could barely float anymore; her already halved health was hovering near zero.

"Finish it off with a _bite_," the gym leader ordered.

"Dodge and use _spite_," was Naruto's response.

Hime tried to snap up the ghost again for a finishing strike, but Spooky managed to move aside. The air shimmered and went gray around the nidoqueen as _spite_ took effect, draining the monster's ability to continue using _bite_. And then Hime jerked as if a nail was driven into her side, leaving her sagging and barely able to stand once the brief episode passed.

"Hit it one more time and you win!" Tsunade shouted encouragingly at her faltering beast.

"Spooky, keep out of reach just a little while longer!" Naruto cheered.

The nidoqueen tried one more time to _bite_, but failed again. The blue beast jerked again as _curse_ recurred and destroyed more of Hime's health. The poison monster wobbled and then collapsed in a dead faint.

"Hime is unable to battle," Shizune called out in the hushed silence that followed. "Match four is over. Challenger, Naruto Uzumaki, is the winner."

Naruto smirked, smiled, and then whooped in victory…

…And then he screamed when Spooky hugged him.


	7. Part VII

**Forest of Death**

_Part VII_

"Okay, so you do have…issues…with ghosts."

Naruto scowled at Tsunade.

"Fine, fine," the gym leader sighed and fished around in the inside pocket of her "gambler" jacket. "As proof of your victory…one Leaf Badge, just for you."

The boy accepted the green leaf-shaped badge that was decorated with a white swirl and pinned it to the inside of his own jacket. "Thanks."

"Cheer up, you earned it fair and square," the woman laughed. "You didn't even try to use that gyarados of yours. Why swap it out for a ghost pokémon that you have trouble using?"

_Cheer up? You didn't scream like a baby in front of everyone when one of your own monsters hugged you!_ "I'm working on my ghost problem," he informed her. "And it's silly to have pokémon that you can't use."

"…Makes sense," Tsunade had to agree. Then she smirked down at him, pushed his goggles down from his forehead to dangle around his neck, and then…kissed him. "You did very well."

Naruto gaped at her.

"And tell your mother," the gym leader continued smugly, "that she owes me a hundred bucks. She lost The Bet."

"Bet?" Naruto blinked, rubbing dazedly at his forehead. "What bet?"

Tsunade just grinned at him. "Just tell her that. Now off with you! Go fix up your beasts. Shoo!"

Naruto rubbed at his scarred cheek and went to leave for the pokémon center…only to run straight into all of his friends who'd been watching from behind his end of the field.

"What a troublesome match," Shikamaru remarked, his quilava apparently nodding in agreement. "Congratulations on winning."

"Yeah, congratulations!" Chouji grinned, his croconaw and munchlax clapping.

"Did you really have to battle with that vulpix?" Ino asked with a frown, fingering the large notched leaf growing out of her bayleef's head. "Its coloration is so stunning it would surely score high in contests, even without any poffin or pokéblock enhancement…"

"Not bad," Kiba smirked, patting his growlithe on the head. "Did you watch all that Akamaru? We need to learn from that for when we fight Tsunade."

"You mean when you challenge her again," Shino said, adjusting his shades. "You already challenged her three days ago…and lost."

"Quiet you!" Kiba snapped, waving a fist threateningly. "Who asked you anything?!"

"No one," the Aburame boy answered stoically.

"P-please don't fight," Hinata squeaked nervously. The girl then turned to Naruto with a formal bow, her little riolu mimicking her. "C-congratulations on y-your victory, Na-Naruto-kun."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, hands jammed into his pockets. "You didn't lose; good for you."

"Now that you have the Leaf Badge, what are you going to do?" Sakura asked curiously.

"Er…thanks," Naruto replied, trying to figure out what to address first. "Everyone…thank you. Uh, I don't know what I'm going to do next, except go to the pokémon center. And…Sasuke, you're a jerk."

Sakura gave him an annoyed look. "Naruto…"

Ino was a bit more irate. "Naruto, don't insult Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke seemed more irritated by the girls than by what Naruto had said.

Naruto rolled his eyes and slipped through the small throng of old classmates on his way to the nearest pokémon center. The battle was over and now his monsters needed medical treatment. With a center close by, it made more sense to just head there than waste precious supplies that would be better used out in the wilds where medical help was hard to find.

At first, it seemed like none of them followed him, but just after he'd made it to the pokémon center and submitted his team, he found that he wasn't alone.

"That was a close fight," Sasuke said quietly, nearly making Naruto jump out of his skin. "And you say you don't know what you'll do next?"

"Aren't you worried that Sakura and Ino will track you down when they find that you've run off?" Naruto shot back as he skulked off towards the nearest sofa to wait for his monsters to be healed and returned to him.

Sasuke shrugged, trailing after Naruto to take a seat on the same sofa. "It'll take them a while. And you haven't answered me."

"I know I need to train," Naruto replied. "It's just a matter of deciding where to go, how long to train, and which gym to hit next after that. And why do you care anyway?"

The Uchiha boy shrugged again. "It was an excuse to get away from the girls and maybe get a bit of quiet."

Naruto eyed the dark-haired boy warily before shifting his stare to the carpet. Neither said anything—Sasuke because he never said much anyway, and Naruto because he found that he didn't feel like talking. But eventually Naruto found a question to ask.

"You're not going to tell anyone about…what you found out…about me…are you?"

Sasuke didn't even spare him a glance. "Your family's issues are none of my business, and I don't go around talking about other peoples' business."

That relieved Naruto…somewhat. "Okay."

"…I don't see why you'd want to keep this secret," Sasuke muttered. "You can't keep something like this quiet forever. And some people might get upset at being kept in the dark about this." The Uchiha gave him a side-long glance. "You ready for the consequences?"

Naruto did his best to ignore to Sasuke. What would he know about this? He was from a well-respected family that had always been whole. He'd never been the weirdo with the crazy mom and mystery dad. Sasuke never had anything like this to come to grips with…

One of the center's attendants brought Naruto a tray bearing his pokéballs, containing his restored pokémon. Leaving Sasuke sitting on the couch, he hurried to the nearest free terminal and went about restoring his line-up. He had no problems sending Spooky away to get Typhoon back, but he hesitated when it came to swapping Drifter for Bolt.

_…If I keep Drifter with me for a while, I can teach him how to navigate to home so he can deliver letters and stuff. And it's been a long time since I've been home. It's been…almost a year since I left. Heh, if I time things right, I could be home for my 12__th__ birthday!_

After a little more consideration, he took Shadow's pokéball and swapped it for Bolt, keeping Drifter with him for the time being.

And then he used the computer terminal's phone function to place a call.

_"Oh, hello!"_ His mother's face smiled back at him from the video screen, a smudge of flour on her cheek. _"How are things going?"_

"I won," Naruto told her proudly, opening the inside of his hoodie jacket so that she could see his newest badge.

_"Excellent!"_ his mother grinned widely. _"How was the match?"_

"It was really hard, but I made it," he replied. "And…Tsunade says that you owe her money for losing some bet." A thought struck him that made him frown. "…Did you bet on my match with her?"

_"No, of course not!"_ His mother frowned at him, and then looked away from the camera like she was embarrassed. _"I made a bet with her long before you were born."_

"What about?" Naruto asked curiously.

_"Nothing important,"_ she muttered. _"So what are you going to do now?"_

"I was thinking of coming home for a while." Naruto rubbed nervously at the back of his head. "That's okay, right?"

_"Of course!"_ she laughed. _"If you hurry, you can be home in time for your birthday! Hmm, I'll have to bake you a cake…"_

"Can it be vanilla with chocolate frosting?" he asked, mouth watering a bit at the thought of it.

_"Sounds good to me,"_ she nodded. _"So I'll see you soon…and call me if you change your mind!"_

"I will," Naruto promised and, after saying good-bye, ended the connection.

Hooking his pokéballs to his belt, he headed to the upper level of the pokémon center to get his things together. It was a bit late in the day to head out of the city, so he wouldn't. Instead, he'd get organized, relax the rest of the day, and then leave first thing in the morning for home in Konoha Town…

* * *

Sending Shizune off to heal her four damaged monsters, Tsunade remained behind on the pretext of examining the damage done to the battlefield. Releasing Nawaki, she waited until she was alone in the gym. When she was, she turned to the sidelines where a clump of bushes and small trees were growing. Her brown eyes focused on a large pinkish flower hidden in the shade.

"So, did you enjoy the show?"

The flower, which seemed to bloom from a stem thick enough to be a tree trunk, shivered and then rose as the venusaur that it grew from stood up and walked out into the open…along with the human who'd been crouched down in her shadow.

"Yes," Minato grinned widely. "…And it looked to me like you had a lot of fun, too."

"So what if I did?" Tsunade shrugged, as her leafeon rubbed against her legs. "That brat of yours wasn't bad."

The League Champion grinned even wider. "Yeah, he's pretty good…" His expression turned curious. "Say…what was that bet with Kushina you mentioned to him?"

The woman gym leader smirked.

_"…You're way off base, lady! Namikaze isn't my boyfriend! I don't like him like that! I'd rather kiss his poliwhirl!"_

_ "Heh, you sound so sure… Want to make a bet on that?"_

"You'll have to ask her about that," Tsunade laughed.

Minato pouted. "Aw, c'mon…" When she remained tight-lipped, he dropped the subject for another. "So, have you found anything concrete out on the 'green fairy'…?"

"No, not really," Tsunade sighed. "I've been too busy tussling with little punk trainers who want to challenge me to get much else done."

"Well, perhaps if you hadn't hidden in casinos for so long, there wouldn't be such a back-log of trainers eager for your badge," he pointed out.

"Oh hush," the older woman frowned.

Minato leaned against his venusaur's flank. "So…what _did_ you find out?"

"Nothing really beyond local urban legends and myths that I already knew," Tsunade replied. "Celebi the time traveler and forest spirit…resembles a small green fairy…and is believed to be a plant-based pokémon…if it really exists. There is no record of one—if there is more than one in existence—ever being captured or even photographed. Researchers classify it as a "Legendary" pokémon, if they even believe that it is real." She shook her head. "I don't see why such obviously powerful and serious criminals would pursue something like that."

"A monster with the ability to travel through time would be a very powerful weapon," Minato remarked. "…And I believe that Legendary pokémon are real."

"Of course you do," Tsunade sighed. "I think they're all a bunch of fairy tales. The three birds, the three beasts, the three golems, the three psychic spirits, the guardian of the sea, the guardian of the sky, the creator of continents, the creator of seas, the dragon of the sky, the dragon of time, the dragon of space, the ghost dragon from another dimension, the great creator…it's all ridiculous! I say that different countries and regions made them up for their own mythologies, or to make themselves feel special."

"Perhaps," Minato conceded. "But I still think that they could be real. And what better way to gain power than to capture creatures so rare and powerful that they are considered legends?"

Tsunade frowned uneasily and rubbed Nawaki's leaf-like ear. As a child, her grandfather had taught her many stories of the monsters of legend. But her favorite had always been the story of the two battling firebirds and how they had inspired the first lord of Fire Country in naming his newly-formed domain.

_If they __**are**__ real, and this "Akatsuki" gets their hands on even __**one**__ of them…then Arceus help us…_

* * *

Hiruzen Sarutobi puffed on his pipe as he sat in his den and poured over the latest issue of one of his favorite pokémon research journals. There were some reviews of an article he'd written a few months back that he was particularly interested in. And there was also an article written by an old colleague, Homura, which could be intriguing.

But then his infernape slipped into the room, presenting him with a ringing portable phone.

"Thank you, Enma," the professor smiled and took the phone. "Hello? Professor Sarutobi speaking." His old eyes widened slightly at the voice he heard on the other end. "…Itachi? What can I do for you…?"


End file.
